Good point about understanding. Lets say there is a catastrophe, world goes to hell, understanding is lost. Then people go into a library and start opening boo

Good point about understanding. Lets say there is a catastrophe, world goes to hell, understanding is lost. Then people go into a library and start opening books. The arcane symbols of Math would be indistinguishable from books of magic. Without the understanding, fresh minds would be hard pressed to distinguish math formula from magic runes. The understanding of the math comes from some community of people passing it along from generation to generation more than from the symbols.