Clayton, to your last paragraph, what level of mathematics is required to understand this?
What is a "level" of math?
College algebra, calculus, differential equations, linear algebra, physical math, etc.
He used singular form. It seemed like a reference to rank.
I had a math teacher, he majored in Math and then became a HS math teacher/vice principal until he retired may 2010, that there were several "leaps" in math that people get lost at. These were
1) Going from concrete math to abstract math - ie 1 apple and 2 apples is 3 apples to 1+2=3
2) Adding in "letters" - basic variables
3) the infinite summation of infinetly small things is a number- basically infinite things and calculus
4) Supposedly more- but he never went that far.
To me, I haven't had trouble in math- yeah I have earned 2 Bs in math- Calc 3 and Diff Eq, but that is because I didn't put the effort into memorizing the formulas to simplify a problem so it took 5 minutes not 50, and could have finished the test.