“What does it mean to say that the universe is ‘made of mathematics’? An obvious starting point is to ask what mathematics is made of. The late physicist John Wheeler said that ‘the basis of all mathematics is 0=0’. All mathematical structures can be derived from something called “the empty set”, the set that contains no elements. Say this set corresponds to zero; you can then define the number 1 as the set that contains only the empty set. 2 as the set that contains the sets corresponding to 0 and 1, and so on.

Keep nesting the nothingness like invisible Russian dolls and eventually all of mathematics appears.

Mathematician Ian Stewart of the university of Warwick UK, calls this, ‘The dreadful secret of mathematics: it’s all based on nothing.’

Reality may come down to mathematics, but mathematics comes down to nothing at all.

That may be the ultimate clue to existence-after all, a universe made of nothing doesn’t require any explanation.”