One of the unspoken premises of the book is that learning to program requires learning how to deal with new knowledge domains. SICP doesn't require mathematical sophistication - math is just another knowledge domain and not much different from the graphics domain in Chapter Two or the banking examples in Chapter three.
In some ways mathematical knowledge is even easier to obtain since the same logic underpins it as the lambda calculus upon which scheme is built.
That's not to say that some of the exercises don't rate 28 on the Knuth scale. But I don't think there are any 34's or higher...and it goes without saying that the Donald definitely throws in whatever math might be needed regardless of the reader's experience. And yet this doesn't make TAOCP inaccessible.
In some ways mathematical knowledge is even easier to obtain since the same logic underpins it as the lambda calculus upon which scheme is built.
That's not to say that some of the exercises don't rate 28 on the Knuth scale. But I don't think there are any 34's or higher...and it goes without saying that the Donald definitely throws in whatever math might be needed regardless of the reader's experience. And yet this doesn't make TAOCP inaccessible.