Regarding "Reading Mathematics is not a linear experience": You have to say, compared with what. I remember that compared with theoretical physics, mathematics

Regarding "Reading Mathematics is not a linear experience": You have to say, compared with what. I remember that compared with theoretical physics, mathematics seemed emphatically like a linear experience. A friend of mine tried once to express in gestures the difference between learning mathematics and learning physics. He said: "Mathematics is like this:" Then he opened a book, moved his finger slowly along the first line on the page, left to right, humming like a computer that's processing something. Once he got to the end of the line, he tapped the middle of the line and said "Beep beep", then he moved to the second line, moved his finger from left to right humming, tapped in the middle and said "Beep beep" and so on. The he said: "Physics is like this:" And moved the finger along the first line, then the second line, etc., and only after he got to the bottom of the page he tapped the center of the whole page and said "Beep beep". I remember there was a bunch of us there and we all agreed that he was onto something.