Period.

One of the most beautiful things that civilization has bequeathed to us is the periodic table. It's amazing because it always existed - at least, for millions upon millions of years - but was only written down a couple of hundred years ago. Like some of the so-called "man-made" elements in the higher-numbered periods, it just took some human hands to reassemble it. Human tools, not human minds. Even the most brilliant chemists and astrophysicists had to follow the rules that the Universe invented; they don't create or conceive or even mold this masterpiece; they just put the pieces in the order most resembling what the Universe would impart if it spoke English. But the Universe doesn't speak English. It speaks mathematics. And light. And particles, and wavelengths, and electrons.  The elements were always there, not concerned with their own size or shape or whether or not we used used the Latin root word. They shall continue to be just themselves, reacting, reassembling, long after Homo sapiens sapiens stop talking about them.

This commonplace black-and-white fixture in classrooms the world over is the whole of nature translated into human language. And it looks so boring. But it contains our known universe.