Everyone knows there are billions and billions of stars, and national debts conjure up similar astronomical numbers. Yet we have found a way to hide … - John Barrow

It is simplest to think of mathematics as the catalogue of all possible patterns. ...When viewed in this way, it is inevitable that the world is described by mathematics. ...In many ways the search for a Theory of Everything is a manifestation of a faith that this compression goes all the way down to the bedrock of reality...

The spooky ether was persistent. It took an Einstein to remove it from the Universe. ...Gradually, over the last twenty years, the vacuum has turned out to be more unusual, more fluid, less empty, and less intangible than even Einstein could have imagined. Its presence is felt on the very smallest and largest dimensions over which the forces of Nature act.

The laws of Nature are based upon the existence of a pattern, linking one state of affairs to another; and where there is pattern, there is symmetry. Yet...the symmetries that the laws enshrine are broken in... outcomes. Suppose that we balance a needle on its point and then release it. The law of gravity, which governs its subsequent motion, is perfectly democratic. It has no preference for any particular direction in the Universe: it is symmetrical in this respect. Yet, when the needle falls, it must fall in a particular direction. The directional symmetry of the underlying law is broken, therefore... By the same token, the fallen needle hides the symmetry of the law... Such 'symmetry-breaking' governs much of what we see in the Universe... It allows a Universe governed by a small number of symmetrical laws to manifest an infinite diversity of complex, asymmetrical states. This is how the Universe can be at once, simple and complicated.