Do you think this is true in science or not?

[Achilles]

"If you can't explain something simple enough for someone to understand then you don't know it well enough" 

or

"If you can't explain something to someone then you don't understand it well enough"

Takes away the "simple" cause maybe it aint a simple concept to them, but nonetheless can still be explained. I mean that is how we all learn in the first place right.
 

[Itoero]

A person might need prior knowledge to understand something.

[Phi for All]

I've always used the analogy that science knowledge is like a jigsaw puzzle cut from the multi-layered skin of an onion. It's all very interconnected, and knowledge in one area doesn't necessarily translate to understanding in another. In many cases, there is no simple, easy-to-grasp way of explaining a concept. Science is not as intuitive as many like to think. 

OTOH, I suppose you could say that there is a simple way for a knowledgeable person to explain science to anyone, given enough time to remove the impeding ignorance. As Itoero mentions, prior knowledge is often required at each step, leading one deeper into the mysteries.

[beecee]

Perhaps this is relevant here.....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp4dpeJVDxs

 

[CharonY]

20 hours ago, Phi for All said:

I've always used the analogy that science knowledge is like a jigsaw puzzle cut from the multi-layered skin of an onion. It's all very interconnected, and knowledge in one area doesn't necessarily translate to understanding in another. In many cases, there is no simple, easy-to-grasp way of explaining a concept. Science is not as intuitive as many like to think. 

OTOH, I suppose you could say that there is a simple way for a knowledgeable person to explain science to anyone, given enough time to remove the impeding ignorance. As Itoero mentions, prior knowledge is often required at each step, leading one deeper into the mysteries.

However, as a general trend someone knowledgeable on a topic has an easier time navigating nuance and find simplifications that are useful. Of course, it still does not mean that everything can be trivially explained.

[Itoero]

On ‎26‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 8:33 PM, Achilles said:

If you can't explain something simple enough for someone to understand then you don't know it well enough" 

Didn't Albert Einstein supposedly said this?

I suppose there are many scientists that know there subject matter very well but don't posses the capabilities to explain/teach there subject matter to other people.

[Bean_Spiller]

I'm liking the responses in this thread

[mistermack]

Sometimes, too many people getting involved makes a simple explanation almost impossible. 

I had a situation a couple of days ago, when my friend asked me to help him work out how to set the tappets on his old Triumph Thunderbird. 

It's a really simple process, but another friend of his happened to be there, (a former bike mechanic) and it turned into a nightmare, because three people were seeing it from a different angle. As soon as his friend left, we did it in no time. He knew what he was doing, but saw it a different way. 

[et pet]

On 8/28/2018 at 2:41 PM, Itoero said:

Didn't Albert Einstein supposedly said this?

I suppose there are many scientists that know there subject matter very well but don't posses the capabilities to explain/teach there subject matter to other people.

  There are a few similar quotes ofttimes attributed to Albert Einstein and others :

"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother." ;  

(attributed to Ernest Rutherford when Rutherford said) "it should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid." ;  

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.” ;  

“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.”

-  from : https://interestingengineering.com/13-inspiring-einstein-quotes-never-actually-said-by-einstein , 

     and ; https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/35209/which-of-these-quotes-are-actually-einsteins-if-any

    Not sure that Albert Einstein actually said any of those phrases "verbatim"...

   Seriously, though, it makes sense that if you honestly cannot explain something fairly simply, you probably do not truly and fully understand it.

Edited October 28, 2018 by et pet

[beecee]

On 8/27/2018 at 7:40 AM, Phi for All said:

OTOH, I suppose you could say that there is a simple way for a knowledgeable person to explain science to anyone, given enough time to remove the impeding ignorance. As Itoero mentions, prior knowledge is often required at each step, leading one deeper into the mysteries.

I would agree with that and I'm pretty sure Occam's Razor can be summed up with  the quote "Something should be explained as simple as possible, but not any simpler"....or words to that effect.

[John Cuthber]

2 hours ago, beecee said:

as simple as possible,

Should be "as simply as possible".

Which brings me to another issue.

I know analytical chemistry quite well. 
But I can't explain it to the majority of people in the world.

They don't understand English.

Even some English people don't have the vocabulary needed to explain , say, relativity, without teaching them some new words.

And then there's the maths, which some folk don't know.

 

[StringJunky]

On 03/09/2018 at 11:23 AM, mistermack said:

Sometimes, too many people getting involved makes a simple explanation almost impossible. 

I had a situation a couple of days ago, when my friend asked me to help him work out how to set the tappets on his old Triumph Thunderbird. 

It's a really simple process, but another friend of his happened to be there, (a former bike mechanic) and it turned into a nightmare, because three people were seeing it from a different angle. As soon as his friend left, we did it in no time. He knew what he was doing, but saw it a different way. 

"Too many cooks spoil the broth"

[et pet]

1 hour ago, John Cuthber said:

Should be "as simply as possible".

Which brings me to another issue.

I know analytical chemistry quite well. 
But I can't explain it to the majority of people in the world.

They don't understand English.

Even some English people don't have the vocabulary needed to explain , say, relativity, without teaching them some new words.

And then there's the maths, which some folk don't know.

 

   In all actuality, John Cuthber, most Cites of that famous Albert Einstein Quote have it as "Everything Should Be Made as Simple as Possible, But Not Simpler"- https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/05/13/einstein-simple/

   - from a quick and easy site to Cite : https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein :   

    "It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

"On the Method of Theoretical Physics" The Herbert Spencer Lecture, delivered at Oxford (10 June 1933); also published in Philosophy of Science, Vol. 1, No. 2 (April 1934), pp. 163-169., p. 165. [thanks to Dr. Techie @ www.wordorigins.org and JSTOR]

There is a quote attributed to Einstein that may have arisen as a paraphrase of the above quote, commonly given as “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” or “Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.” See this article from the Quote Investigator for a discussion of where these later variants may have arisen.

The original quote is very similar to Occam's razor, which advocates that among all hypotheses compatible with all available observations, the simplest hypothesis is the most plausible one.

The aphorism "everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler" is normally taken to be a warning against too much simplicity and emphasizes that one cannot simplify things to a point where the hypothesis is no more compatible with all observations. The aphorism does not contradict or extend Occam's razor, but rather stresses that both elements of the razor, simplicity and compatibility with the observations, are essential.

The earliest known appearance of Einstein's razor is an essay by Roger Sessions in the New York Times (8 January 1950)[8], where Sessions appears to be paraphrasing Einstein: “I also remember a remark of Albert Einstein, which certainly applies to music. He said, in effect, that everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler.”

Another early appearance, from Time magazine (14 December 1962)[9]: “We try to keep in mind a saying attributed to Einstein—that everything must be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.” - https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein

    Heck, John Cuthber,  2 seconds on google gets you : https://www.quora.com/What-exactly-did-Einstein-mean-by-Everything-should-be-made-as-simple-as-possible-but-not-simpler ; 

     https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/05/13/einstein-simple/ ; 

     https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/albert_einstein_103652 ;

     https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/374887/meaning-of-make-things-as-simple-as-possible-but-not-simpler ;

     http://wiki.c2.com/?EinsteinPrinciple ; 

      and those are just a few from the first page of results that you get : https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=Something+should+be+explained+as+simple+as+possible%2C+but+not+any+simpler".&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

   So, John Cuthber, it should be fairly simple for anyone to simply and properly Cite that Quote(pun intended!), but this is scienceforums, so...

   Again, as I opined in my previous Post : Seriously, though, it makes sense that if you honestly cannot explain something fairly simply, you probably do not truly and fully understand it.

 

Edited October 28, 2018 by et pet

[Strange]

41 minutes ago, Strange said:

Edit: It was Feynman ...

But he also said, more relevant to this thread: "Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel prize."

The slight irony there is that Feynman won the Nobel Prize for his contributions to quantum electrodynamics (QED) and yet he went on to do a series of lectures to lay audiences (also available as a book) which did explain the concepts in simple terms that almost anyone can understand.

[John Cuthber]

2 hours ago, et pet said:

   In all actuality, John Cuthber, most Cites of that famous Albert Einstein Quote have it as "Everything Should Be Made as Simple as Possible, But Not Simpler"- https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/05/13/einstein-simple/

   - from a quick and easy site to Cite : https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein :   

    "It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

"On the Method of Theoretical Physics" The Herbert Spencer Lecture, delivered at Oxford (10 June 1933); also published in Philosophy of Science, Vol. 1, No. 2 (April 1934), pp. 163-169., p. 165. [thanks to Dr. Techie @ www.wordorigins.org and JSTOR]

There is a quote attributed to Einstein that may have arisen as a paraphrase of the above quote, commonly given as “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” or “Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.” See this article from the Quote Investigator for a discussion of where these later variants may have arisen.

The original quote is very similar to Occam's razor, which advocates that among all hypotheses compatible with all available observations, the simplest hypothesis is the most plausible one.

The aphorism "everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler" is normally taken to be a warning against too much simplicity and emphasizes that one cannot simplify things to a point where the hypothesis is no more compatible with all observations. The aphorism does not contradict or extend Occam's razor, but rather stresses that both elements of the razor, simplicity and compatibility with the observations, are essential.

The earliest known appearance of Einstein's razor is an essay by Roger Sessions in the New York Times (8 January 1950)[8], where Sessions appears to be paraphrasing Einstein: “I also remember a remark of Albert Einstein, which certainly applies to music. He said, in effect, that everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler.”

Another early appearance, from Time magazine (14 December 1962)[9]: “We try to keep in mind a saying attributed to Einstein—that everything must be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.” - https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein

    Heck, John Cuthber,  2 seconds on google gets you : https://www.quora.com/What-exactly-did-Einstein-mean-by-Everything-should-be-made-as-simple-as-possible-but-not-simpler ; 

     https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/05/13/einstein-simple/ ; 

     https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/albert_einstein_103652 ;

     https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/374887/meaning-of-make-things-as-simple-as-possible-but-not-simpler ;

     http://wiki.c2.com/?EinsteinPrinciple ; 

      and those are just a few from the first page of results that you get : https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=Something+should+be+explained+as+simple+as+possible%2C+but+not+any+simpler".&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

   So, John Cuthber, it should be fairly simple for anyone to simply and properly Cite that Quote(pun intended!), but this is scienceforums, so...

   Again, as I opined in my previous Post : Seriously, though, it makes sense that if you honestly cannot explain something fairly simply, you probably do not truly and fully understand it.

 

Thanks for taking the time  + effort to research all of that.

 Beecee's post was still wrong.

 

6 hours ago, beecee said:

"Something should be explained as simple as possible, but not any simpler"

You seem not to have noticed that, while he said it was a quote, he didn't say from whom.

Einstein said something similar- but since he got the grammar right that can't be who Beecee quoted.

With all due respect to Einstein; he's dead. It doesn't matter exactly how he said it, or even if he didn't.

 

I am reminded of my boss  checking a report I wrote and commenting "this is very complicated".

I pointed out that it was for a peer reviewed journal in analytical chemistry- not a "Janet and John" book. It was perfectly reasonable for me to assume  considerable knowledge on the part of the reader.

 

There's a difference between "I can explain this to a schoolkid" and "I must explain this as if a schoolkid is reading it"

 

 

[beecee]

7 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

Should be "as simply as possible".

Which brings me to another issue.

I know analytical chemistry quite well. 
But I can't explain it to the majority of people in the world.

They don't understand English.

Even some English people don't have the vocabulary needed to explain , say, relativity, without teaching them some new words.

And then there's the maths, which some folk don't know.

 

Yep, I accept that. It's probably relevant to say that explaining GR to the majority of people, is best left as portrayed in most pop science shows, with the bowling ball and trampoline analogy. In that respect some credence is always put in the fact that we accept what reputable professionals have and do tell us...In the same mode as expecting your morning commute bus to work to be on time. 

[beecee]

3 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

. Beecee's post was still wrong.

Not really, what I said was "Something should be explained as simple as possible, but not any simpler"....or words to that effect.

 

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

Note: some off-topic posts have been hidden split to the trash

(edit: theories being "wrong" has been split to a new thread)

Let's get back to the question of the OP

 

[OldChemE]

Explaining something in simple terms takes more than knowledge-- it is an art.  I've known some brilliant people who knew their subject so completely that the many qualifications and exceptions made it impossible for them to explain things in a simple fashion.  Being able to simplify without leaving out key concepts is difficult.

[StringJunky]

Just now, OldChemE said:

Explaining something in simple terms takes more than knowledge-- it is an art.  I've known some brilliant people who knew their subject so completely that the many qualifications and exceptions made it impossible for them to explain things in a simple fashion.  Being able to simplify without leaving out key concepts is difficult.

It's got something to do with empathy.

[Itoero]

On ‎29‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 1:16 AM, StringJunky said:

It's got something to do with empathy.

Correct, I think.. In general,  you need to know/learn/recognize someone's level of understanding/comprehension concerning a certain subject matter. You can call it 'cognitive empathy'.

[StringJunky]

4 minutes ago, Itoero said:

Correct, I think.. In general,  you need to know/learn/recognize someone's level of understanding/comprehension concerning a certain subject matter. You can call it 'cognitive empathy'.

I shall steal that.   I try to speak in the 'language' of the listener when explaining something.  There's no point in speaking Mandarin to someone that doesn't understand it... it's a waste of breath.

Edited November 2, 2018 by StringJunky

[koti]

30 minutes ago, Itoero said:

Correct, I think.. In general,  you need to know/learn/recognize someone's level of understanding/comprehension concerning a certain subject matter. You can call it 'cognitive empathy'.

 

28 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

I shall steal that.   I try to speak in the 'language' of the listener when explaining something.  There's no point in speaking Mandarin to someone that doesn't understand it... it's a waste of breath.

I invite you both to read this, I find it interesting and refreshing:

http://www.danielgoleman.info/three-kinds-of-empathy-cognitive-emotional-compassionate/

[StringJunky]

7 minutes ago, koti said:

 

I invite you both to read this, I find it interesting and refreshing:

http://www.danielgoleman.info/three-kinds-of-empathy-cognitive-emotional-compassionate/

Yes, interesting. That splits it down to different forms.

[jajrussel]

On 8/26/2018 at 2:33 PM, Achilles said:

"If you can't explain something simple enough for someone to understand then you don't know it well enough" 

or

"If you can't explain something to someone then you don't understand it well enough"

Takes away the "simple" cause maybe it aint a simple concept to them, but nonetheless can still be explained. I mean that is how we all learn in the first place right.
 

No I don’t think it is true. Well, not always I once met a  Genius. He couldn’t dumb things down. Most people avoided taking to him. He loved to talk. I found the conversation fascinating. His enthusiasm for explaining every little thing was just as fascinating. It took me 15 minutes to figure out that he was explaining to me why the guttering I was installing worked I spent years installing guttering so once I figured out what he was talking about. That conversation went a lot easier. He was in his thirties I’m guessing . His parents had to take care of him. His inability to dumb things down was a handicap. I could only follow his conversations because I made an effort, and from one minute to the next the subject would change, but it only took fifteen minutes of talking about something I did know about to figure out  that everything he said would probably make sense to someone a lot smarter than me.