What's the intended purpose of this article? Why was it written? It's always frustrating to read pieces about mathematicians written by people whose attitude i

What's the intended purpose of this article? Why was it written? It's always frustrating to read pieces about mathematicians written by people whose attitude is "[I have no chance of ever grasping what ultimately makes this article possible]" and "'[Cartesian geometry?] I can recall sitting in that class,' I said, lying.". I know writing such things is often supposed to make the article more palatable to a lay audience who probably feels the same way, but honestly all it accomplishes is reinforcing to that audience that mathematics is an esoteric topic for geniuses. This kind of article, which pretends to be bringing mathematics to the masses, is just another one of the reasons students feel so comfortable incessantly returning to saying "I'm not a math person" instead of being empowered whenever they have some success with math. This is so frustrating because of course I approve of the apparent motivation behind writing an article like this.