As someone formerly in the sciences, I can't suspend my disbelief long enough to make it through a treknobabble explanation, it's just cheesy enough where it's painful. Though I think trash to describe a lot of science and math wiki articles is a bit of a strong word. A lot of them are written by the practitioners or people with intimate knowledge so I'd 100% expect jargon so it can be impenetrable at times, that's where the references come in handy: textbooks, articles and whatnot. A bit opaque yes, but not trash.
I have the same experience. I've got enough math and enough interest that I can follow concepts taught to math undergrads, if it's explained well and I play with it a bit. Wikipedia math articles may as well be line noise to me. Fortunately, there are plenty of other sources I can turn to.
