"As simple as possible, but not simpler." (often credited to Einstein) See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occ

"As simple as possible, but not simpler." (often credited to Einstein) See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor That said, the whole field of science journalism and popular science book writing lives from violating these rules, making things much simpler than they actually are. But then again, the average person is a) not in charge of the physics experiments and b) tries to use these as a reference in a scientific paper is up for a surprise.