> Lately I've developed a distaste for thinking of math as simply a representation of "something real", I'd rather think of it as a language in its own right.
I remember reading a SF story some time ago (forgot its title and author) where maths is the language of choice between us, humans, and the passengers of an alien ship who had just landed on Earth.
I also dream of other realities (call them parallel universes or whatever) where maths is just different, like for example the real numbers being one and the same as the natural number. It could still be called "maths" even though totally different from "ours", the same as the Basque language is totally different from a "classic" Indo-European language but they serve the same purpose.
You might be thinking of Carl Sagan's _Contact_. There a set of construction instructions are constructed from first principles using mathematical notation.
I remember reading a SF story some time ago (forgot its title and author) where maths is the language of choice between us, humans, and the passengers of an alien ship who had just landed on Earth.
I also dream of other realities (call them parallel universes or whatever) where maths is just different, like for example the real numbers being one and the same as the natural number. It could still be called "maths" even though totally different from "ours", the same as the Basque language is totally different from a "classic" Indo-European language but they serve the same purpose.