Several fields of mathematics have developed in total isolation, using their own “undecipherable” coded languages. In a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Tamás Hausel, professor of mathematics at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), presents “big algebras,” a two-way mathematical ‘dictionary’ between symmetry, algebra, and geometry, that could strengthen the connection between the distant worlds of quantum physics and number theory.