> People who really grasp a subject can usually explain it well in plain language.

That's very much a matter of style. An equation is often the plainest way of expressing something

rsp1984 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The problem is that equations give the illusion of conciseness and brevity but in reality always heavily depend on context.

You give a physicist an equation of a completely unrelated field in mathematics and it will make zero sense to them because they lack the context. And vice versa. The only people who can readily read and understand your equations are those that already understand the subject and have learned all the context around the math.

Therefore it's pointless to try to start with the math when you're foreign to a field. It simply won't make any sense without the context.

▲

griffzhowl 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Of course, but everything depends on context. Stating a mathematical theorem in English will also make no sense to someone who's not acquainted with the field

	▲	rsp1984 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		You can start with plain language and work your way up towards the math. But it doesn't work the other way round.