Mathematics has often been at the forefront of our key discoveries in science, anticipating many of the developments in physics and helping to make sense of the data that scientists uncover. Reaching back into history, the author traces mathematical breakthroughs over the centuries and explains their significance in exploring the size and shape of the earth, the nature of light and energy, and the workings of the universe. Osserman also introduces the reader to mathematicians like Carl Friedrich Gauss and Bernhard Reimann or as he calls them the Beethoven and Brahms of mathematics.