Mathematics is to the scientist and engineers a tool, to the professional mathematician a religion, but to the ordinary person a stumbling block. Yet all of us are really using mathematics through every moment of our lives. When we play tennis or walk downstairs we are actually solving whole pages of differential equations, quickly, easily and without thinking about it, using the analogue computer which we keep in our minds. What we find difficult about mathematics is the formal, symbolic presentation of the subject by pedagogues with a taste of dogma, sadism and incomprehensible squiggles.

Structures or why things don't fall down - J.E. Gordon