[yummyfajitas]

Actually, the question you are asking is "Why mathematica and not Common Lisp or Scheme + some libraries?"

Mathematica is lisp + a bunch of a math libraries + vendor support + slightly different syntax + renamed functions. The syntactic differences:

    {a b c} -> '(a b c)
    f[a,b] -> (f a b)
    a == b -> (Equals a b)
    (* comment *) -> ;;comment

Since there is no advantage to different syntax and renamed functions, people choose mathematica over other lisps (and grumble about the weird syntax).