> For example, it should be possible to describe how compound interest works without falling into an obscure technical explanation I personally find these obsc

> For example, it should be possible to describe how compound interest works without falling into an obscure technical explanation I personally find these obscure technical (and highly abstract) explanations often far more easy to understand. I often found "easy" explanations highly illogical - not before I got the rather abstract explanations I found these explanations acceptable (and even this was not always the case - almost always the explanation for this phenomenon was that the definitions given in foundation courses could be abstracted a lot). How can this be explained? The reason is simple: in highly abstract definitions anything that is not necessary is omitted - so there is less to think about. Additionally in this kind of definitions there is a lot more "internal logic". What does this mean? This is a little bit difficult to explain for non-mathematicians, but you can be sure that anything in the definition has a deep meaning. If this meaning seems strange to you, you can be sure that what remains to be understood often carries a deep meaning. On the other hand: when using "simple" definitions, you always have to worry whether, if something sounds strange, it is because you haven't understood it or if the "simple" explanation was simply bad. Disclaimer: I'm a mathematician (as may be imagined). But I'm a computer scientist, too. :-)