"The community has been curious about your labors," he told the scholar. "We'd like to hear about it, if you don't mind discussing it. Of course we've all heard about your theoretical work at your own collegium, but it's too technical for most of us to understand. Would it be possible for you to tell us something about it in--oh, general terms that non-specialists might understand? The community has been grumping at me because I hadn't invited you to lecture; but I thought you might prefer to get the feel of the place first. Of course if you'd rather not--"[Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz. Bantam (New York: 1988) 182.]
The thon's gaze seemed to clamp calipers on the abbot's cranium and measure it six ways. He smiled doubtfully. "You'd like me to explain our work in the simplest possible language?"
"Something like that, if it's possible."
"That's just it." He laughed. "The untrained man reads a paper on natural science and asks, 'Now why couldn't he explain this in simple language.' He can't seem to realize that what he tried to read was the simplest possible language--for that subject matter. In fact, a great deal of natural philosophy is simply a process of linguistic simplification--an effort to invent languages in which half a page of equations can express an idea which could not be stated in less than a thousand pages of so-called 'simple' language. Do I make myself clear?"
The point could scarcely be put in a better way. Of course, it raises further questions, because it's precisely this that gums up the works when it comes to scientific pedagogy and popularization.
