Maths just seems to get so opaque almost as soon as you leave the well trodden routes that you have been taught... I'd like to think that with A level history, or Chemistry, you'd have a fairly good chance of understanding the basic concepts of what is going on in more advanced levels of the subject. But more advanced maths? It just seems to be totally impenetrable to me as an A level student doing f/maths... I suppose it's the abstract nature of it all, makes it hard to visualise*, and being able to imagine things is a big part of how brains (at leas my brain) works stuff out...
*Visualise transformations in the complex plane for me, seriously. It might genuinely be useful to me to be able to visualise that totally imaginary weird stuff.