Mathematics... is mired in a language of symbols foreign to most of us, [it] explores regions of the infinitesimally small and the infinitely large that elude words, much less understanding. So specialized is mathematics today... that most mathematical papers appearing in most mathematics journals are indecipherable even to most mathematicians.

The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan, Prologue (p. 6), Charles Scribner's Sons. 1991