> It is a constant wonder to me that so many people seem blind to the beauty and elegance
> of maths.

Maybe because it can become harder and harder to visualize! Also, it is just to "precise" to many people! Not me, of course...

> It must be akin to going through life blind to great art, deaf to great music, literature
> and poetry.

Maybe, but note that our main physical senses do so much integration that many of the errors are all blended in by the eye and hear and the other body organs with sensors...

In other words, sometimes I feel like the perfection and precision of math are not of this world...

> Even more of a wonder to me is the phenomenon that so many otherwise intelligent
> people actively choose to cut themselves off from such an elegant facet of
> understanding/appreciating the world.

I also wonder about that! Maybe because their senses and brain can and do get so easily overwhelmed by math!!!

Anyway, I see math as an Universal languague that certainly trancends this world (at least Earth), like when I look at the sophisticated crop circles, it always makes me wonder...

Without math we could not explore outer space and even inner space, among other things, and that is for sure...

Without math, there would be no high tech, Internet and/or other communication networks like TV, radio, cell phone, etc, etc, and that is also for sure...

..and, above all, without math there would be no Universe and no existence at all...

-wirelessguru1