“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Albert Einstein
Disagreeing with Einstein is walking on thin ice, but in the above quote he does not do justice to the challenge of explaining things.
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Have you ever felt frustrated because your colleague just did not get what you were trying to explain? Have you ever felt stupid because you could not understand what the professor was trying to teach? Do you think this was because of a lack of expertise on the presenter’s side? Or that one side or the other was not intellectually capable of grasping the idea?
The problem in such situations is typically not the lack of expertise or intelligence. The problem is that explaining things simply is not an easy task at all. Therefore, Einstein’s quote above is a bit reductive: understanding the problem well is a necessary condition to explaining it simply. But it is not sufficient.
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Finding a simple explanation of a complex problem does not only require a good understanding of the problem, it also It requires careful thought, proper preparation, and a good portion of creativity. And - as with everything - practice makes perfect.
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Once you can explain what you do in an understandable, relatable manner, people that are not experts in your field can understand it, appreciate it, and relate it to their fields. This can spark ideas for new cross-disciplinary applications and innovations and maximise the impact of your work.
That’s why at REAL we put an extra emphasis on explaining things simply. Students and researchers receive dedicated training and ample practice opportunities to master the art of presenting complex contents.