I had a girlfriend who insisted that &quot;two plus two equals four&quot; was a better expression than &quot;2+2=4&quot;, but then she also had trouble with any concepts past algebra (and most of algebra for that matter). The notation is efficient and precise. English, and most other languages, are not. We may be able to express the <i>idea</i> of relativity or Newtonian mechanics or anything else in words, but the base concepts end up requiring us to move into a more expressive and precise language when we want to understand and <i>apply</i> (which today is mathematics expressed with the notations of algebra, trigonometry and calculus).