Question: I’ve always wondered why is it mathematics is considered the “universal language” in physics and the explanation of the natural world. What is the possibility of different civilizations ...

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Peter Watson, Emeritus professor, Physics, Carleton ...

Excerpted with permission from Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality, by Max Tegmark. Available from Random House/Knopf. Copyright ...

Almost 400 years ago, in The Assayer, Galileo wrote: “Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe … [But the book] is written in the language of mathematics.” He was much more than an ...