From Garry Marley, Stillwater, Oklahoma, US
In his article “Do aliens do physics?”, Daniel Whiteson speculates that “other [alien] species might build technologies without developing anything recognisable as physics”. Perhaps our fellow terrestrial species that also don’t ask “why” demonstrate this using the bedrock of physics: mathematics (14 March, p 42).
For example, honey bees use a “waggle dance” to communicate food sources to hive mates. Different segments of the dance convey the food source’s direction relative to the sun, distance (magnitude) and quantity. If an insect can communicate using intrinsic maths concepts, other species, both terrestrial and extraterrestrial, probably find them beneficial. Of course, in a multiverse, all bets are off.
