I really wonder what percentage of difficulties that stem from math are due to its representation in the symbolic language used. By that I mean, so often, I am staring at a long, condensed equation. Factored to perfection by whomever was working on developing it. I stare at it for hours and just can't figure out what's going on.

Then after much tinkering with the parameters, exploring the limits, plotting graphs, slowly I look at it and recognize what is going on and realise "gosh that is actually really F**ing simple"

I wonder how much of "learning" math is really spent on decoding the representations we are provided, rather than understanding the concept they're meant to represent.