what is taxonomy?

Answer 1

This is the scientific discipline of naming organisms. It was started by Carolus Linné (Carl Linneaus), perhaps the most famous taxonomist. Taxonomy is one of the three branches of Systematics.
www.bioinf.org/molsys/glossaryT.html

Answer 2

Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification. The word comes from the Greek τάξις, taxis, 'order' + νόμος, nomos, 'law' or 'science'. Taxonomies, which are composed of taxonomic units known as taxa (singular taxon), are frequently hierarchical in structure, commonly displaying parent-child relationships.

Applications
Originally the term taxonomy only referred to the science of classifying living organisms (now known as alpha taxonomy); however, the term is now applied in a wider, more general sense and now may refer to a classification of things, as well as to the principles underlying such a classification.

Almost anything, animate objects, inanimate objects, places, concepts, and events, may be classified according to some taxonomic scheme.

The term taxonomy may also apply to relationship schemes other than parent-child hierarchies, such as network structures. Other taxonomies may include single children with multi-parents, for example, "Car" might appear with both parents "Vehicle" and "Steel Mechanisms"; to some however, this merely means that 'car' is part of several different taxonomies.

A taxonomy might also be a simple organization of objects into groups, or even an alphabetical list. In current usage within "Knowledge Management", taxonomies are seen as slightly less broad than ontologies.

Mathematically, a hierarchical taxonomy is a tree structure of classifications for a given set of objects. It is also named Containment hierarchy. At the top of this structure is a single classification, the root node, that applies to all objects. Nodes below this root are more specific classifications that apply to subsets of the total set of classified objects. So for instance, in common schemes of scientific classification of organisms, the root is called "Organism" followed by nodes for the ranks: Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, etc. (more details below).

You could get more information from the link below...

Answer 3

Taxonomy : 1) The science,laws, or principles of classification.
2) (biology) The theory,principles and process of classifying organisms in established categories according to observed similarities or supposed evolutionary relationships.

Answer 4

Taxonomy is the study of the general principles of scientific classification, also called Systematics. It is also the scheme of classification used when describing organisms according to predetermined natural relationships.

It was not started by Linneaus. It was actually started by Greek scholars during their high point in human history. However, their classifications normally exceeded one or two pages when completed. Linneaus restructured the classification system into its simpler and more familiar two word format that we use today.

Answer 5

To put it simply, a taxon, is another word for group.
Taxonomy is the the grouping of things and in science and classification of species, its the way we identify things by putting them into groups.

For living things there are five groups or kingdoms. They are, Animal (animalae), Plants (plantae), Fungi, Prokaryotae (ie, bacteria and most protein cell walled organisms), and Proctoctista, (these are single celled organisms)

Then, during taxonomy you must group everything furthur still by adding each individual to their phyla, class, order, family, genus and finally, their species groups which are all individual.