exp(x)

I feel the magic in math is that the notation is to a more universal sort of language, and the e^x captures that. e^x means that infinite series, but it means a few other things at the same time. That those different things are sometimes related, that e^2 means e*e, a simple enough operation most can understand, but that it also means that infinite series with 2 in place of x, is part of the complexity of math that makes it quite different than a classical programming language. With most programming languages, someone assigned those equivalent meaning, and while it might be important to understand why, it shows you the mind of the who designed the language. But, in math (and in true Computer Science), when you see an equivalence of this sort, whose mind are you now glimpsing into?

But, for someone just starting out (or even an expert who just wandered into a new area), this becomes a barrier to understanding. Sometimes we need the mathematical summary, what tells us the immediately answer we are interested in, perhaps even if it loses the deeper nuances that are beneficial for the experts more fluent in the language.

(And yes, all math notation is human created, so it makes my point quite a bit messier in practice.)