Books written for a different audience are hard to read. I don't belong to the wide audience of Hamming's "The Art of Doing Science and Engineering." I admit parts of the book cost me way too much time. So you can imagine the comfort I felt when I read that I could skip the maths:
Later sections will be understandable [...]. General results are always stated in words [...]"
I kept on reading. The book is about "style", after all. I am interested in his general results. It did, however, hurt a bit to read:
"Later sections will be understandable provided you are willing to forgo the deep insights mathematics gives into the weaknesses of our current beliefs."