There have been several men and women throughout history who have shown, in one way or another, strong mathematical abilities, though they were famous for other reasons.
Yesterday I was working on an article on the life of James Garfield, 20th President of the United States, and was absolutely blown away by the stories of the man's intelligence.
It was said that he was so capable in classical languages that he could write simultaneously in Greek with one hand in Latin with the other.
I was even more surprised that, while he was a Congressman from the state of Ohio, Garfield found the time to develop a very intuitive proof of the Pythagorean theorem (a decent explanation of this can be found on this page, which explains several different proofs).
There have actually been several American politicians who have been drawn to the mathematical arts (as well as many other historical figures who, while not known primarily for their skills in this area, dabbled frequently in mathematical inquiry).
Thomas Jefferson is another well-known math-loving President. Some great examples of Jeffersonian mathematics can be found on this page.
There are many such examples of this, and I find it encouraging that many great men and women throughout history never lost their fascination with mathematics - a topic of learning that is absolutely limitless in its potential application.
The conclusion: Perhaps it doesn't take a mathematician to have some valid insight into mathematics. Perhaps it just takes a person who is willing to look at the subject from a slightly different perspective. If you take a look at the work of Albert Einstein, for instance, you will see that this is one of the secrets to his success in relativity - he was able to see the physical laws in a way that was fundamentally different from others.
I hope this is encouraging to all of those who (like me) love math, but can not be considered mathematicians.
