I suspect something opposite, that math comes before the universe because the universe needs math but math doesn't need the universe. Math only calls for internal consistency which radically does not depend upon the universe. It describe perfectly self-consistent realities that do not exist. Math could model say for instance a world of continuous matter as opposed to our mostly empty matter for instance. We have calculated numbers larger than the universe itself could render after all.
I beg to differ. Math typically requires abstract thought, symbols, and humans to produce and enjoy it. Especially the latter is quite a dependency.
We could reduce the requirements down to an implementation of a Turing machine, or something similar. (For the argument I simply ignore whether the machine is conscious -- that seems irrelevant in this context.)
That still requires some kind of discrete switch, which may seem fairly minimal to a human observer, but in reality consists of tens of thousands of atoms to operate. Atoms used to be simple, but turn out to be quite complex as well.
Representing, say, a circle in a fairly minimal system such as this would probably require the cooperation of millions of atoms.
