All our surest statements about the nature of the world are mathematical statements, yet we do not know what mathematics "is"... and so we find that we have adapted a religion strikingly similar to many traditional faiths. Change "mathematics" to "God" and little else might seem to change. The problem of human contact with some spiritual realm, of timelessness, of our inability to capture all with language and symbol-all have their counterparts in the quest for the nature of Platonic mathematics.

Once upon a time there was no Time.

Apparently, a great deal of dark, unseen material exists, whose gravitational pull is responsible for the motions of the stars and galaxies that we see.

Once upon a time when there was no time.

When we try to observe things that are very small, the act of observation itself will significantly disturb the state we are seeking to measure.

There are only certain intervals of time when life of any sort is possible in an expanding universe and we can practise astronomy only during that habitable time interval in cosmic history.

Some things are as they are regardless of what they were.