A quote from Galileo Galilei‘s book, Il Saggiatore published in Rome, October, 1623:

Philosophy [i.e. physics] is written in this grand book — I mean the universe — which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering around in a dark labyrinth.

 

The same can be said of media arts and sciences: if you aim to go beyond a superficial understanding of contemporary media technology, it is necessary to be able read the language in which it is based. Ultimately, that language is mathematics.

The School of Athens, Raphael (1509)

In my first year of graduate school, there was a student from Greece who taped a banner above the entrance to the graduate student offices. His banner looked something like this:

meaning ‘Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here‘, an inscription that is said to have hung over the entrance to Plato’s academy. The importance of mathematics for understanding the world was recognized in ancient times by the Greek philosophers, reflected in the painting by Renaissance artist Raphael, The School of Athens, linked above. One sometimes sees reproduction of Raphael’s painting displayed in research labs and scientist’s offices. I have one which I bought as a souvenir on a visit to the Vatican.

While mathematics is often deeply hidden behind the user-friendly interfaces of the complex software packages we use in our work, it is important to understand it is basis for these tools. Especially in the area of computer graphics, no development of new techniques is possible without an understanding of geometry and other branches of mathematics. If you are doubtful, try sitting in on some presentations at a graphics conference such as ACM Siggraph. Without some knowledge of mathematics you will quickly come to feel that you are wandering in a dark labyrinth.

[1] Galileo Galilei, Il Saggiatore, Rome, 1623.

Quote via the Wikipedia article about the English translation, The Assayer.