The Italian mathematician and astronomer Galileo Galilei is often credited with discerning the vital role played by mathematics in our attempt to understand the universe. In a 1623 essay titled “Il ...

“Space is big,” wrote Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979). “You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down ...