If you can't explain it to a 10 year old...

Parnerium wrote:

Merin Kyo Den wrote: Some things just need to be understood on a personal level that transcends our ability to phrase it in words.

That's what poetry is for

Trisskar wrote: I am not so sure i agree with the statment/quote. Here is why

While i agree that it is important to remember Simplicity in your methods of relaying information. Some things, I believe...Is not as simple as we would like it.

I can write fan fiction and stories. It comes naturally to me, just something I do as a hobby and I enjoy it alot.

I, however, couldn't explain exactly how one writes a good story to a ten year old in simple words beyond the cop out answer "Just keep practicing."

I can however, explain it with alot of time and many scenario's/examples until at least one of them....maybe....gets through to said 10 year old.

In other words. Experience is a form of knowledge, and no matter how many different ways you "Explain it" you can't replace experience.

You simply cant relay to a ten year old the emotional struggle of holding down a job, paying bills, and figuring out where you are going to get that $60 for that same 10 year old to take Riding Lessons at the local horse barn. That takes Experience to explain that kind of stress and hardship. Not words for a 10 year old to understand. Dosn't mean you, yourself, don't understand it though.

Just my thoughts.

I think we should always remember to keep things simple. But we must not pretend we are dumb or un-intelligent just because we can't relay experience to children or people outside of your own understanding.

Tellahane wrote: So I heard this line earlier today on the radio, it's not a quote of someone famous that I know of but the idea is if you can't explain any given topic/device/item/idea to a 10 year old in a way that they will understand it(and not just what it is but how it works and why you use it), then you don't truly 100% understand it yourself.

if you open page 418 of Einstein: His Life and Times (1972) by Ronald W. Clark, it says that Louis de Broglie did attribute a similar statement to Einstein:

To de Broglie, Einstein revealed an instinctive reason for his inability to accept the purely statistical interpretation of wave mechanics. It was a reason which linked him with Rutherford, who used to state that "it should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid." Einstein, having a final discussion with de Broglie on the platform of the Gare du Nord in Paris, whence they had traveled from Brussels to attend the Fresnel centenary celebrations, said "that all physical theories, their mathematical expressions apart ought to lend themselves to so simple a description 'that even a child could understand them.' "

Loudzoo wrote:

Tellahane wrote: So I heard this line earlier today on the radio, it's not a quote of someone famous that I know of but the idea is if you can't explain any given topic/device/item/idea to a 10 year old in a way that they will understand it(and not just what it is but how it works and why you use it), then you don't truly 100% understand it yourself.

It's pretty close to the Einstein attributed quote "If you can't explain something to a six-year-old, you really don't understand it yourself."

Although I've also seen this attributed to Einstein too: "You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother."

According to this (http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8742/did-einstein-say-if-you-cant-explain-it-simply-you-dont-understand-it-well-en)

if you open page 418 of Einstein: His Life and Times (1972) by Ronald W. Clark, it says that Louis de Broglie did attribute a similar statement to Einstein:

To de Broglie, Einstein revealed an instinctive reason for his inability to accept the purely statistical interpretation of wave mechanics. It was a reason which linked him with Rutherford, who used to state that "it should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid." Einstein, having a final discussion with de Broglie on the platform of the Gare du Nord in Paris, whence they had traveled from Brussels to attend the Fresnel centenary celebrations, said "that all physical theories, their mathematical expressions apart ought to lend themselves to so simple a description 'that even a child could understand them.' "

There's some good advice here that we could probably all benefit from!! http://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/if-you-can-t-explain-it-to-a-six-year-old-you-probably-don-t4190/

Warning: Spoiler!

As people are being increasingly bombarded with more information than they can handle and suffering the effects of information overload, we need to discover the art of less. Get to the point; what you leave out is as important as what you put in.

Technological advances have made it easier to gather and distribute information through a greater array of channels. The natural selection processes that would have kept all but the most important information from being distributed have gone and we are not replacing them with our own controls.

Not only has the volume of information distributed gone up, but also we have become lazy about the quality of what we send. We spend insufficient time processing and preparing raw information to ensure that it is effective communication. David Shenk, author of a 1997 book on the subject, called the abundance of low quality information that we mistake for communication (or knowledge) “data smog”. The smog stops us seeing what is important.

Just because the world has made it easier for us all to become experts and to publish doesn’t mean that we are and that we should. The skill lies in the ability to pare down to the core of what the audience needs, to add by taking away. Making the opaque clear and the complex easy to understand requires control.

Simplicity is where genius lies.

Some definitions:

Data: raw facts and figures.

Information: data organised into a meaningful context.

Knowledge: information that has been understood and applied.

Information overload: having more information than you can process effectively.

Information Fatigue Syndrome: the effects of information overload, including the inability to make decisions or take action.

Data smog/Dataglut/Infobog: the overabundance of low quality information that pollutes daily life.

Non-information: poor quality data that lacks relevance and usefulness.

Developing the art of doing less: The onus on those with something to communicate, or those who communicate on the behalf of others, is to apply the skills required to get the message across effectively, simply and succinctly.

Here are some suggestions for how to reduce the quantity and improve the quality of your communication at a macro and micro level:

Tailor for different audiences
Provide information specific to audience needs and interests. Give your audience “permission not to know” the other stuff.
Allow information to be “pulled”
You don’t have to “push” all information, all of the time, by sending it direct in all its detail to everyone. Let people know where it is available if they want it. Ask “why would someone want to receive this?” rather than “why not?”
Prioritise
Don’t send the less important information. When you have decided what to send, put the most important points first. Not everything is “crucial” and “essential”.
Be succinct
Add by taking away.
Organise
It is more important to know where and how to find what you need to know than to have everything provided on a plate.
Remove waste
Carry out an audit to review your communication channels, to find duplication and irrelevance. Pick your key channels and focus on making them work hard for you rather than being on every network and using every portal you can find.
Make links
Integrate messages and initiatives to create a single whole that can be easily digested and efficiently applied in real life.
Tell the truth
If you don’t know, or you don’t know yet, say you don’t know. This takes less time, energy and words than inventing something that probably doesn’t answer the question and may well have to be re-written at a later date.

But maybe that's too much information