By stepping outside the box of our usual way of thinking about numbers, my colleagues and I have recently shown that arithmetic has biological roots and is a natural consequence of how perception of the world around us is organized.

Our results explain why arithmetic is true and suggest that mathematics is a realization in symbols of the fundamental nature and creativity of the mind.

Thus, the miraculous correspondence between mathematics and physical reality that has been a source of wonder from the ancient Greeks to the present—as explored in astrophysicist Mario Livio’s book Is God a Mathematician?—suggests the mind and world are part of a common unity.