People that are not mathemeticians but use some aspect of math in their employment or household duties far outnumber the people that are mathemeticians. It is not unreasonable for schools to serve such purposes of the general public, such as understanding what percents are. Also, mathemeticians, long before attaining the label in the vocational sense, are only permitted entry into their degree programs in the first place if they have demonstrated some level of competence by doing well enough in their prior math schooling. If the author would write some detail about what mathemeticians really do beyond stating that they do art, his argument could be made more persuasive. I would be curious to see if anything that they are working on is anything that I am actually capable of understanding without having studied the foundations of their topics. In any case, the author is advocating a false dichotomy when insisting that mathematicians are innovators and not users of known methods.
The author successfully communicates that he is passionate about math but does not successfully communicate that it really is as amazing as he describes, at least not for the untrained mind. His general and and overly grand statements do not seem appropriate when a person is faced with the arduous task of reading mathemeticians’ findings in the published journals. A student can far more easily appreciate the output of a musician or painter. While music and paintings can be subject to abstract analyzing, there is an immediacy involving the senses that benefits music and paintings far more so than most math.