Daily Quote

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."

-Albert Einstein

If you can't explain something in even the most simple terms, you probably don't know it well enough. You should be able to explain it to a really little one in vocab words to match. If you can't, and the only thing you can repeat is what you read or learned originally, you probably don't know it well enough. For example, if you were asked to explain Snell's Law, a formula used to calculate angles of refraction, to someone who doesn't know anything about science, you would have to take it slowly. You would first say the formula, n₁sinøi=n₂sinør, and then go into details about the various things inside the formula. The n stands for the index of refraction, which is basically how much the material makes the light bend when light enters it. The index of refraction for air is 1, but the index of refraction for water is 1.33. Sin is for sine, which is a trig function, but with theta i (which is just the angle measurement you are given to work with), you can plug them into the formula to get theta r which is the angle of light that will come out after being refracted. I know this formula and explanation would not be understood by a little kid or someone completely clueless about science, but do you understand what I mean? If you can't explain something easily and in detail, you probably don't understand it well enough.