Math is Used to Explain the Universe...

 Math is always been abstract.  Then, at some point, science catches up and can often utilize that math to describe and predict the happenings of the universe.  For example, the imaginary numbers you learned about in Gr 11 math - I used it to partially describe electricity's behaviour while studying in university.

XKCD, a popular comic, compares math and science based on purity:

Math is a convenient tool to describe the things we can't really understand - like black holes.  In the latest news, the physicist, Mersini-Houghton, has just mathematically proven that black holes do not exist.  She has married two known sides of science - quantum physics with general relativity with her finding, which is a pretty big deal. We'll see if it stands up to the scrutiny of the other scientists.