In essence, we string theorists have been trying to work out the score of the universe, the harmonies of the universe, the mathematical vibrations that the strings would play. So musical metaphors have been with us in science since the beginning.

Over the centuries, monumental upheavals in science have emerged time and again from following the leads set out by mathematics.

The number of e-mails and letters that I get from choreographers, from sculptors, from composers who are being inspired by science is huge.

So many galaxies, so many planets out there in the universe circling so many stars... it just feels like there's a very good chance that there is another Earth-like planet out there that is able to support some kind of life similar to what we're familiar with.

The revelation we've come to is that we can trust our memories of a past with lower, not higher, entropy only if the big bang - the process, event, or happening that brought the universe into existence - started off the universe in an extraordinarily special, highly ordered state of low entropy.

But, as Einstein once said, “For we convinced physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent.”5

For most people, the major hurdle in grasping modern insights into the nature of the universe is that these developments are usually phrased using mathematics.