Question: how do equations tell you how the universe behaves

Clare Burrage answered on 14 Mar 2012:

The language of the universe is maths! We use equations to decribe everything in physics, they’re what allow us to make predictions. There are equations that tell us how waves move on the surface of water, how stars burn, how the planets move around the sun, and all sorts of other things. We test these equations against what we see and if they don’t match up to relaitiy we try to improve our equations. When we have equations that accurately describe what we see, we can use them to make predictions!
What I do is try to make better equations to describe how our universe is evolving.