5 ms·

A lot of people seem to be conflating the idea of explaining something to a layman, and explaining something using simple terms.

coldtea 9y ago
That's because those things are inherently tied. It's not about taking your time and making the layman an expert to understand some hard topic. It's about being able to relate it to them in simple terms. Obviously, if you use the "hairy" physics etc terms, then the layman wont understand your explanation, because he is not familiar with them.
sh87 9y ago
Unfortunately, that is what is expected more commonly these days where the audience being presented to a.k.a layman aren't users or domain experts or people who know whats going on. They're management "experts" tasked with getting "resources" to "get things done". I've seen people from my domain making ridiculous, inaccurate analogies and oversimplify to hide the inherent challenges that a task usually involves. And they get away with that because they aren't the ones actually building the product. They just have to sell it. And the one's they are selling to aren't/won't be using the product either, they will tell someone else to use it.
Jach 9y ago
A math formula is one of the objectively simplest ways of expressing something. But it's not easily understood unless you know the math well, thus violating Gruber's rule. Feynman was honest about this, because magnetism can be explained very simply, but not in any familiar way to things most people already know about. At least as good as math (and capturing the objective complexity better I think) is a working program. "What I can't program, I don't understand." When people ask for a simple explanation, they usually expect it to be easy for them too, because we all want simple and easy at the same time, even though only one of those is objective. If your reply to "how do magnets work?" is to start by writing down Maxwell's equations, you're gonna get crap for it, but someone who uses the fake rubber band analogy will be well received. But who really understands magnetism better?
- brownbat 9y ago
  To your point, Feynman's famous magnets interview: http://www.sciencealert.com/watch-richard-feynman-on-why-he-can-t-tell-you-how-magnets-work http://www.sciencealert.com/watch-richard-feynman-on-why-he-...
- xg15 9y ago
  But I think that's the deeper point of the "if you can't explain it, you don't understand it": Sure, you can write down the equations, but then what exactly have you done? You wrote down some string of characters and showed that it can be derived from some other strings of characters by applying a series of arbitrary-looking rules. By itself, that doesn't tell anything. It's only when you manage the connect formula to the part of reality that it tries to describe - and connect that part to the rest of reality - that it gains any sense. Trying to explain a concept in "simple terms" forces you to view it in terms of its connection to other, well-known phenomena.
  - throwaway3535 9y ago
    > You wrote down some string of characters and showed that it can be derived from some other strings of characters by applying a series of arbitrary-looking rules. At this point it's turtles all the way down.
    - xg15 9y ago
      No. That's what it looks like if you only look at the formula. (And why I'd say that formulas are not an "objectively simple way of expressing something*) If you can somehow keep in mind what the formula is supposed to represent, the operations on characters will let you find some insight about that thing and will stop standing only for itself.
      - Qwertious 9y ago
        The point is that the term "simple" is inherently subjective - there are plenty of concepts that are simple and intuitive once learned, but are hard to learn. Also, mathematical formulas are essentially a different language. If people don't speak it, then it's a moot point.

coldtea 9y ago

That's because those things are inherently tied. It's not about taking your time and making the layman an expert to understand some hard topic. It's about being able to relate it to them in simple terms. Obviously, if you use the "hairy" physics etc terms, then the layman wont understand your explanation, because he is not familiar with them.

sh87 9y ago

Unfortunately, that is what is expected more commonly these days where the audience being presented to a.k.a layman aren't users or domain experts or people who know whats going on. They're management "experts" tasked with getting "resources" to "get things done". I've seen people from my domain making ridiculous, inaccurate analogies and oversimplify to hide the inherent challenges that a task usually involves. And they get away with that because they aren't the ones actually building the product. They just have to sell it. And the one's they are selling to aren't/won't be using the product either, they will tell someone else to use it.

Jach 9y ago

A math formula is one of the objectively simplest ways of expressing something. But it's not easily understood unless you know the math well, thus violating Gruber's rule. Feynman was honest about this, because magnetism can be explained very simply, but not in any familiar way to things most people already know about. At least as good as math (and capturing the objective complexity better I think) is a working program. "What I can't program, I don't understand." When people ask for a simple explanation, they usually expect it to be easy for them too, because we all want simple and easy at the same time, even though only one of those is objective. If your reply to "how do magnets work?" is to start by writing down Maxwell's equations, you're gonna get crap for it, but someone who uses the fake rubber band analogy will be well received. But who really understands magnetism better?

brownbat 9y ago
To your point, Feynman's famous magnets interview: http://www.sciencealert.com/watch-richard-feynman-on-why-he-can-t-tell-you-how-magnets-work http://www.sciencealert.com/watch-richard-feynman-on-why-he-...
xg15 9y ago
But I think that's the deeper point of the "if you can't explain it, you don't understand it": Sure, you can write down the equations, but then what exactly have you done? You wrote down some string of characters and showed that it can be derived from some other strings of characters by applying a series of arbitrary-looking rules. By itself, that doesn't tell anything. It's only when you manage the connect formula to the part of reality that it tries to describe - and connect that part to the rest of reality - that it gains any sense. Trying to explain a concept in "simple terms" forces you to view it in terms of its connection to other, well-known phenomena.
- throwaway3535 9y ago
  > You wrote down some string of characters and showed that it can be derived from some other strings of characters by applying a series of arbitrary-looking rules. At this point it's turtles all the way down.
  - xg15 9y ago
    No. That's what it looks like if you only look at the formula. (And why I'd say that formulas are not an "objectively simple way of expressing something*) If you can somehow keep in mind what the formula is supposed to represent, the operations on characters will let you find some insight about that thing and will stop standing only for itself.
    - Qwertious 9y ago
      The point is that the term "simple" is inherently subjective - there are plenty of concepts that are simple and intuitive once learned, but are hard to learn. Also, mathematical formulas are essentially a different language. If people don't speak it, then it's a moot point.