In many sciences, especially in physics, theories and ideas are communicated through math. Equations are how relationships are communicated, how we express the way things work in a way that is universally understood. To many, this would mean math is the most fundamental thing in the universe, because it can communicate ideas across any field, but I think math is only a language to communicate principles that exist whether we communicate them or not.
If mathematics were the most fundamental thing to the universe, it should be able to stand alone, which it does. There are principles of math that are on their own, that can be used to explain things just within math. But these principles of math are then used to explain and expand on principles in other fields. Theories of math are like verbs or nouns, they are only specific elements of a language used to communicate ideas. The beautiful thing about math is it can explain things to people of all different languages and backgrounds in a way they can all understand.
However, consider the following example; a species of beings 3 lightyears away has a very advanced scientific society. They are completely involved in explaining the laws of physics, but the society has an incredible ability of telepathy in their society, so all ideas are communicated through the mind, with no intermediate step. This telepathy is accompanied by only communicating abstractly. In their society, there is no such thing as math. The laws of nature are only in the minds of the beings, over the total telepathic network and are not conveyed through the language of mathematics. To us, these beings would seem to have no knowledge of science, but really they could have a knowledge much more advanced than our own. The point of this example is that even though the society does not have mathematics, the laws of physics still exist and can still be represented. To me this says that physics is more fundamental.
Math is simply our way of translating physical laws into a language we can understand, but it must not be the only way of thinking of our physical world. We could try to think of things more abstractly, then comminicate them through mathematical language. I'm by no means saying math is not important, I'm only saying its not fundemental to the way things really work. If we are to advance in the study of our universe, we should not confine ourselves to limits set by mathematics in explaining physical phemomenon, but allow ourselves to think of things in many different, more creative ways of communication of ideas and ideas themselves.
