I tell you what mathematically I'm having it, I want to live on science alone

Do you ever have those days where you wonder why you chose your profession? I had one of those yesterday as I was trying to make it through a paper describing a computer program that looks like it'll do something I've been trying to figure out for a while now.

Here's an exerpt:

The goal is, therefore, to determine for each i from 1 to n such λ(i, z_i, k_i), where z_i = 1 or 2 and 0≤k_i≤K_max, that the resulting solution has the maximum V. In order to do it, we estimate for each λ(i, z_i, k_i) the maximum V of all the solutions containing that configuration. For any a_i in F consider strings F' =a₁a₂…a_i and F" = a_ia_i+1…a_n. For each λ(i, z_i, k_i) denote the maximum V of all the aligned solutions of F' that end with λ(i, z_i, k_i) as P(i, z_i, k_i). Denote the maximum V of all the aligned solutions of F" that begin with λ(i, z_i, k_i) as Q(i, z_i, k_i). Let for a particular λ(i, z_i, k_i) the sum of the corresponding P and Q be the maximum of all aligned configurations at i. In that case, the maximum V of all the solutions of F containing λ(i, z_i, k_i) equals the maximum V of any solutions of F.

And on it went, just like that, for another six pages. I didn't understand any of it. I showed it to my advisor and he said something like, "Well, with that many equations, it must be right."

Words to live by.