Try reading the example on that page. That is what makes math hard. Not the way calculus is described.
When it gets into the symbolics of the ethereum state machine (section 4+), things get hairy fast. Unfortunately papers like this only make sense once you understand the paper. It's a succinct representation of knowledge for someone skilled in the field, but not a sensible way to teach others about the EVM.
Sounds like manpages (:
> In mathematics, abstract nonsense, general abstract nonsense, generalized abstract nonsense, and general nonsense are terms used by mathematicians to describe abstract methods related to *category theory* and homological algebra.
Oh so _that_ is why I can't understand Haskellers..
> took some upper level analysis courses
Real Analysis is still not very abstract, but yeah that is a step. The next step is to remove everything concrete about it and just study abstractions. And then you start studying abstractions of those abstractions, hence "abstract nonsense". Maybe sometimes in the future someone will invent abstractions of those.
Edit: Meant the stuff you learn in Rudins principles of mathematical analysis. Not sure exactly what the course would be called in an English class, but I called it real analysis here.
I'm not saying you would, I'm just saying the abstractions are directly related to why its harder.
> since you still want those explanations, but they stop existing after a point.
You're misunderstanding me.
> The next step is to remove everything concrete about it and just study abstractions. And then you start studying abstractions of those abstractions, hence "abstract nonsense". Maybe sometimes in the future someone will invent abstractions of those.
Yes, I understand all this. I have the textbooks and I've read parts of them. The reason I didn't study math more seriously (I considered it) is because I realized I didn't have the brain for it and am not that interested in studying really abstract stuff.