"The enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious". 

Eugene P Wigner, 1960.

This poster, called Enormous Usefulness, is designed primarily to emphasise the fundamental importance of mathematics to the natural sciences - linking classroom mathematics with life outside the mathematics classroom. For those interested it also provides a potential starting point for discussion about whether mathematics has been discovered or invented.

Wigner - a Hungarian mathematician, born in 1902.

"Wigner's mathematical insights have aided the progress of physics in general and relativity and quantum mechanics in particular.  He was awarded the 1963 Nobel Prize in physics for his contributions to the study of atomic nuclei."  From The World Treasury of Physics, Astronony, and Mathematics, Edited by Timothy Ferris, 1991.

Somewhat related (and alternate) thought(s)

"How can it be that mathematics, a product of human thought independent of experience, is so admirably adapted to the objects of reality?"   - Albert Einstein

"God wrote the universe in the language of mathematics." - Galileo

"From the intrinsic evidence of his creation, the Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician." - James Hopwood Jeans

"The Universe is a grand book which cannot be read until one first learns to comprehend the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics …"  - Galilei Galileo

"The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base ten counting system and likes round numbers." - Scott Adams