Or perhaps it should be "you can't describe this stuff without the maths?"Which is why Feynman made the point that you can't really understand this stuff without the math...
I think one interesting thing is why we ever feel that we need to describe these things using anything other than the maths; why we ever feel the need to do more than shut up and calculate. The mathematical descriptions of such things are the most effecient and accurate descriptions that we know. But we still have this hangover (if that's what it is) from what are sometimes called classical times that there is something called an intuitive, gut feeling about the way the world works, that is supposedly helped if we use analogies from our everyday experiences. Hence balls, and boomerangs and rubber membranes with objects rolling around on them.