I thought that you might like a side note math and literature. I made this diagram after reading, "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler over the summer. The observation is basically his, but the diagram is mine. Adler doesn't have diagrams in his book.
One thing that is true about mathematics on the extreme left of our spectrum is that mathematical terms are well defined and have precise meanings. On the far right the meaning and use of words is often transient and are often chosen for the sound they make or some connotation that they conjure. You can change the words you mostly change the experience. The left hand constructing feelings and experiences. The right is about constructing thoughts and arguments.Often when students don't know a word in a novel, they skip it and are usually more or less unaffected in their understanding of the story. If you don't understand a term in mathematics however, you can easily be completely lost. So, I tell my students to pay special attention to the words I try to teach them in math class, because although it may seem like they talk about words more in their English class, their math vocabulary is far more critical for success in mathematics. Words in math and science are generally used in very specific ways and have special meanings that need to be understood in order to progress.
To further illustrate my point about aesthetics. (Please note, that I love the English language and am not trying to lord over the lovers of novels, etc. I am offering an apology of sorts, making a point about Mathematics.) When I write an essay in English class, I have to be careful about repetition of key words and may be told to include synonyms and the like to add variety. In contrast, almost every Math book I had as an upper division student contained a one page legend of symbols. I wrote arguments in hieroglyphs. We had symbols to stand for many common little words and phrases. In fact, when I wrote those pieces I phrased my narratives using as many glyphs as I could to make my argument compact and easy to read, repetition was my friend. But, that's because it was not so much about the words in and of themselves it was purely about the communication of ideas. The glyphs one could at times, once initiated, take one to magical places only seen by the mind's eye, conducted by the power of pure ideas. We would sometimes critique the arguments we read as ugly or elegant. One might say for example, "I proved it, but I felt like I had to bludgeon it, I wish I had come up with something more elegant."
I'll remind you of a couple quotes from The Math Gene by Keith Devlin I made use of a year or so ago,
"When a mathematician looks at a page of Mathematical symbols she does not 'see' the symbols, any more than the trained musician 'sees' the musical notes on a sheet of music. The trained musicians eyes read straight through the symbols to the sounds they represent. Similarly a trained mathematician reads straight through the mathematical symbols to the patterns they represent”
"It's like asking why Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is beautiful. If you don't see why, someone can't tell you. I know that numbers are beautiful. If they aren't nothing is."
