"While I'm still confused and uncertain, it's on a much higher plane, d'you see, and at least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of the universe." Treatle nodded. "I hadn't looked at it like that," he said, "But you're absolutely right. He's really pushed back the boundaries of ignorance."

-- Discworld scientists at work (Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites)

:-P

Alice sends Bob a token. He analyzes the token, then returns a bit. She erases the bit, and uses the generated heat to cook dinner.

Mathematics is often seen as a divine mystery. Religious metaphors can perpetuate this distance by granting the instructor a divine authority. Students are often told to “take this rule on faith.” Are we asking for faith in the instructor? The book? Mathematics is often portrayed as an eternal system of rules that one learns to obey rather than as a set of principles constructed and agreed upon by humans as useful. Thus we see a current college algebra book stating matter-of-factly that Euclid’s “Elements” is, “next to the Bible, the most influential book ever written.” A more humble approach would be to show the student not only that she or he can use mathematics each day but also that she or he can construct new mathematical concepts personally.