Simple Arithmetic?

 Only a mathematician could ever come up with that!

I've forgotten what the "that" was.  But I remember that an engineer said it.  Now, my knowledge of mathematics can be summed up, generously, by the divisor of an equation that yields a quotient of infinity. But I understood, I think, that engineer's exclamation:  Almost nothing is as abstract--and, therefore, divorced from reality, at least in the minds of many--as mathematics.

If there are things only a mathematician can come up with, then I imagine there are things an engineer would never try or, probably, even think about.  To wit:

To be fair, Sergii Gordieiev's project was inspired by a real-life situation:  He crushed his front wheel on a curb.  That left him, in essence, with half of a wheel.  So that got him to wondering how to ride with half of a wheel.  The solution came from a mathematical equation so simple even I could understand it:  half plus half equals one.  Thus, he realized, he could make a bike run on two half-wheels--on the rear, anyway.

Your local bike mechanic probably can perform all sorts of miracles.  I know:  I've resurrected a bike or two in my time.  (If you're inculcated with the language of Catholicism, it never leaves you!)  But, my old engineer acquaintance said, there are some things only a mathematician could come up with.