One of my friends likes to repeat the famous phrase: “He who thinks clearly, speaks clearly.” This is probably not entirely true. In order to think clearly, it is sometimes useful to try to express your thoughts (or snippets of some conclusions) more often. Therefore, it is probably better to write than to speak. The word is not a sparrow, but what is written with a pen can be rewritten. Unless, of course, it’s a post on Twitter or LiveJournal: there, they say, the trace remains, even if you delete your post.
Our ballerina bought Conan Doyle's book for herself. Now I re-read it with pleasure and find very interesting thoughts that could not catch my eye in childhood and youth. For example: “The best way to get to the bottom of the matter is to tell all its circumstances to someone else.” This is a confirmation of what was written above. You can tell the story both in a letter and in a post.
In recent weeks, we had to develop a “road map” for organizing disinfection in hotbeds of infectious diseases. Today we reported the results to the chief doctor, the day after tomorrow we will report to SPEC (sanitary and anti-epidemic commission under the Government of the Penza Region). Obviously, he liked it (“it became clear how everything should be organized”). Frankly, me too. But everything didn’t happen just once. Over the course of a couple of weeks, I literally raped my disinfectant colleague with questions, clarifications, and adjustments. I think that she felt the same as me, when for a long time a great specialist and our friend Alexei Golovyashkin was squeezing the juice out of me by developing a database for us. Exhausted! But for many years it, the database, behaved impeccably, and so far no one in the AIDS service has been able to create anything like it! But because he is a system specialist in life. We, the epidemiologists of the Soviet school, also developed systems thinking. An epidemiological investigation is almost the same as a criminal investigation. Here, by the way, again from Conan Doyle: “In the art of solving crimes, of paramount importance is the ability to single out the essential ones from a huge number of facts and discard the random ones.” Nicely written!
Some will say that this is a banality, a matter of course. But how often do we tend to explain some events without highlighting the most significant factors that led to the occurrence of this event, but with some philistine ideas (even experts!). In epidemiology, this is especially bad, since unprofessionalism entails numerous victims and causes enormous damage. And, the worst thing is when your ability to influence the situation is limited: by power or means.
“Apparently, knowledge and wealth are the same as a daffodil and a rose. And one thing never flourished next to the other. Whoever owns wealth has a penny of knowledge. Whoever has knowledge has little wealth.”
One of the topics of my conversations with my wife (and she is an epidemiologist from God) was an obsessive discussion of the imminent collapse of the HIV situation in Penza. We even talked about this this evening, when I came home from work and wanted to throw the dice on the sofa - but my wife dragged me right outside the village to pick field strawberries. In 40-50 minutes, the two of us collected about five liters - but the approaching thunderstorm scared us away. But – relaxation, nourishment from contact with nature. By the way: fireweed is ready for harvesting (or fireweed). Tea from it cannot be compared with any dust of Indian roads. Before the revolution, it was one of the profitable items of Russian export. And now people are ready to pay quite a lot of money for what is growing under their feet.
It's nice to have a house in the village!
Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Associate Professor, Department of Physics, North Kazakhstan State University. The main discipline taught to physics students is “Electricity and Magnetism.”
Childhood
I was born in the city of Petropavlovsk in 1956. Parents, lawyers, came to Northern Kazakhstan to develop virgin lands: my father then worked in the regional executive committee, and my mother worked at the actuator plant (ZIM) as a legal adviser. We lived in a one-room apartment in a two-story house with two entrances, in an urban area, which was located in the Workers' Village and was called “Refrigerator”. Why it had such a strange name, I didn’t know until recently on one of the Petropavlovsk forums I read a version on this matter that “... before the mass appearance of refrigeration equipment, ice was frozen there in the winter and covered with sawdust. And all summer long, food warehouses, shops, hospitals and other consumers of “cold” drew it from there.”
I was two or three years old, maybe four. I remember beautiful plastic scissors - of course, children's ones. For some reason I really liked them, but my older friend, who lived in our entrance, either took them away from me, or stole them, and then broke them. I remember that I cried a lot because of this, and this was my first vivid memory from childhood and, probably, my first memorable grief.
Then our family moved to Gorky Street. We began to live in a two-room apartment in a one-story house for two owners, exactly on the spot where the Sports Palace is now located. One of our neighbors was the Anisimov family, they had two daughters: the youngest Lyuda and the elder Ira. The girls were five years older than me. They took “patronage” over me, and I was their student, whom they taught to read from the age of five. My first book is “A Sunny Day” by Voronkova with stories about a girl and her adventures in the village. Closer to school, I read quite a lot and fluently. It seemed to me that I read better than adults.
Primary School
In 1963, I went to first grade at school No. 10 named after Krupskaya. It was located in Petropavlovsk in old buildings at the intersection of Gorky and Chelyuskin streets. The main building was two-story, and the “bosses” studied very close by, in a one-story building.
I remember that on September 1, my mother brought me to school, as expected, with a large bouquet of flowers. I sat down at my school desk and began to study it. The desk was completely different from the tables and chairs I knew well. One desk was intended for two people. The seat was attached to the table, and they formed a single unit. The tabletop of the desk was inclined, and on it there were oblong grooves for pens and pencils and a round recess for an inkwell. Both desk lids hinged forward so that it was very convenient to sit at the desk and stand up without disturbing your neighbor. In addition, when the lid of the desk opened, it slammed loudly and cheerfully. I liked all this.
” “Handwriting” was such a separate school subject, and we had penmanship lessons every day.
On the front wall of the classroom hung a blackboard with a dark brown linoleum surface on which they wrote with white chalk. Part of the board was lined for writing, and there the teacher wrote letters for us, and the other part of the board was with squares, where numbers were written. What was not needed was washed with a wet rag.
This is how my studies began: reading, writing, counting. I had no problems with reading, but I couldn’t write. I learned to write at school, during penmanship lessons.
Penmanship at school
“Handwriting” was such a separate school subject, and we had penmanship lessons every day. All students had their own copybooks with examples of calligraphically written letters and words. In these copybooks we learned to write beautifully using samples. In addition to copybooks, there were also special notebooks for penmanship. They were lined in a special way, with thin and frequent slanted lines. There were no writing samples in the notebooks, and you had to try to write beautifully yourself.
At first we were taught to write with a simple pencil. We wrote with sticks, put dots, then wrote sticks with dots, drew some figures, squares, circles, squiggles. Everything had to be drawn and written very carefully, the teacher strictly followed this.
Then we switched to fountain pens with wooden bodies and metal nibs that needed to be dipped into sippy cup inkwells. Such an inkwell stood on the desk in a round recess; it was specially intended for inkwells. Sippy cups were convenient because their funnel prevented ink from spilling out when tilted or carried. But at the time when I was studying, we did not take inkwells home, but left them at school. Everyone had their own inkwells at home.
As for the nibs that were inserted into the pens, I remember that they were not all of the same quality. Probably the feathers were made of different metals; some feathers did not last long and broke. You had to take or buy new ones, they cost a penny back then. It was quite convenient to write with some pens, but it happened that they not only scribbled, but even tore the paper in the notebooks.
” Some elements of the letters were written with pressure, and then the line turned out thicker.Other elements were written without pressure, and the line in them was thin and narrow.
The writing process looked like this. First you had to dip the pen into the inkwell, then drain the excess ink on the inner edge of the inkwell, and then write carefully. Some elements of the letters were written with pressure, and then the line turned out thicker. Other elements were written without pressure, and the line in them was thin and narrow. Blots were a real disaster when excess ink slipped from the pen onto the notebook sheet. I had to change the sheet and rewrite everything written earlier.
I didn’t have any problems with penmanship; I tried to get straight A’s and B’s. My handwriting was beautiful, I still have my old writing notebooks that you can look at. However, not all students wrote equally beautifully: some had “C” marks in penmanship.
New pens
It is interesting that our first class was, as they said then, experimental. At that time, some kind of urban experiment was carried out to switch to new pens. For those children who wrote well with regular fountain pens, the teacher gave them new automatic pens, or fountain pens. Fountain pens were a source of incredible pride for their few owners (at first there were five or six of them in our class, and I was also one of this number) and the terrible envy of the other thirty students. By the way, with the passage of time and improvement in the quality of writing, the number of owners of fountain pens has grown steadily.
” For those children who wrote well with regular fountain pens, the teacher gave them new automatic pens, or fountain pens.
Fountain pens were also fountain pens, but they could unwind, and inside them there was a tube and a pipette. Using a pipette, it was possible to draw a large amount of ink into a tube, and then write for a long time without dipping into the inkwell.
The ink in the new pens was also not the same as usual. When new pens ran out of ink, you had to raise your hand and ask, “Can I refill my fountain pen?” When the teacher said that it was possible, we walked with an important look through the classroom to the closet. In the closet there was a glass bottle with special ink for fountain pens. We untwisted the pens and pipetted ink. This ink was also purple, but with some more beautiful tint than ordinary ones. In any case, that’s what it seemed to us then.
School Nightmare
I experienced a real nightmare while still in first grade. Here is how it was. I was a mandatory student, I did my homework myself, without the help of my parents. Mom was present at the time, but did not interfere in the process. Every morning, after having breakfast, I went to school at half past nine with my assignments completed from the evening. And suddenly one day, immediately after breakfast, I realized with horror: last night I completely forgot to do the exercise that we were assigned for today... I was as scared as I had never been before to imagine that I would come to school with unfinished homework.
” Not doing my homework was a tragedy for me.
What started here! The world collapsed in an instant. Complete panic and terrible hysteria, tears and terrible screams throughout the apartment. Not doing my homework was a tragedy for me. Mom was seriously scared, but dad intervened in time: “You still have fifteen whole minutes before leaving the house!” Start doing your exercise, you will have time.” I remember that I was amazed by these words, because fifteen minutes for me then seemed like nothing, a complete trifle, just a second. “No,” dad said calmly. “Fifteen minutes is a very, very long time.” Just start and you will succeed.” And for sure: as soon as I, still sniffling, began to do this miserable exercise, when - bam! - and I already finished it. He did everything correctly and on time. Dad was right: fifteen minutes was a lot.
Ideal teacher
We had to study for four years in primary school. However, at school No. 10 I studied first grade and second grade until winter. The fact is that in 1965 our family moved again, this time to the Cheryomushki area, and there I moved to another school - school No. 4. Its two-story building was located behind the TV tower, on the edge of a cliff.
It should be noted that from the first days of studying in the first grade and in all subsequent years, I always went to school and returned from school by myself. No one accompanied me or met me. We didn’t have the very concept that you need to go to school with an accompanying person. It was considered completely safe, and I also went to this school without fear.
I was received well, and there I continued my studies without any problems. Apparently, there is some kind of unspoken rule in schools that they don’t ask new students the first time, so I had the opportunity to take a closer look at other students and get used to the teacher. My new teacher, primary school teacher Tamara Ivanovna, was simply an amazing teacher. I saw that she treated poor students with the same warmth and cordiality as she treated high-achieving schoolchildren. She understood their problems and approached them with heart and soul, as a human being. I think she was the perfect teacher!
School No. 4 was an elementary school, studying there lasted four years, and I studied there for two and a half. After finishing primary school it was necessary to move on to secondary school.
Writing in high school
The high school was a completely different building. Secondary school No. 2 named after Kirov was located on Internatsionalnaya Street. In 1967, the new building of this school had just been built, and I went there to the fifth grade. I immediately had a lot of new teachers, and I had to do written work in almost all subjects except physical education. I had to write especially a lot in Russian language, literature and mathematics lessons. High school means daily writing, both in class and at home. There were so many of them! Tests, independent and laboratory work, essays, presentations and dictations...
We were taught mathematics by a wonderful teacher - Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Markish. And, oddly enough, it was math problems that helped me strengthen my handwriting and organize my studies at school. Once I learned how to format math problems, I learned how to write literature essays! In essence, an essay on literature is the same problem in mathematics. In what sense? A math problem is “given,” then comes the proof and conclusion—“what was required to be proven.” I used exactly the same principle to structure any essay on literature. For example, given - Anna Karenina. It is necessary to prove that she is a good person. Next come the arguments why this is so or not. And at the end comes the conclusion. I learned this approach in mathematics, but I have applied it to other school subjects as well. A problem in physics or mathematics is also a kind of text: “Consider the movement of a car from point A to point B. Its speed is...” All this is first mentally formulated in the form of logically correctly constructed sentences, in which formulas are built in, and then written down in words . And here, of course, legible handwriting is very important.
” High school means daily writing, both in class and at home.
In high school, my handwriting was consistently good. But he became even better in high school, when drawing classes began. We had an excellent drawing and drawing teacher, Ivan Egorovich Vashchenko. Although he did not have one hand, he drew excellently and taught this to his students. From him I learned to write in calligraphic font, and I liked it so much that I began to format my regular written work in this way. I began to write the letters separately, each one separately. The letter turned out to be simpler, more beautiful and quite fast.
Handwriting competition
In my third year at the Pedagogical Institute, during teaching practice at the Golden Autumn pioneer camp, I met my future wife Marina. She and I then held a competition for beautiful handwriting. She, naturally, doesn’t remember any of this, because she lost the competition. The fact is that there was a lot of writing of all sorts of lists of children, and somehow we naturally had a dispute about who could write the best and most legibly. She claimed that she had the best handwriting, and I categorically disagreed with this statement. Our student colleagues gave us some phrase, which we first had to write as beautifully as possible, and then submit the resulting result to the collective consideration of the student jury. And they gave preference to me. That's why I remembered this whole story with the handwriting.
Legible handwriting equals clear thinking
I have to illustrate many problems in physics with some kind of explanatory diagrams and drawings. And often a glance at the graphics provides a path to a solution. In general, the process of solving problems in physics and mathematics is reminiscent of solving some kind of detective puzzle. I really love detective stories, for example, about Fandorin or Kamenskaya, and I am always interested in the process of finding a solution. Detective heroes love to draw diagrams - a graphical vision of their logical reasoning. This way you more clearly understand the relationship between some events, phenomena or entities, this greatly facilitates the construction of models for finding solutions. And such visualization is simply unthinkable, completely incompatible with bad, slurred, illegible handwriting. When, instead of explaining the problem, you end up with an illegible scribbled scrawl, then the path to solving the problem becomes even more confusing. Bad handwriting does not make thinking easier, but, on the contrary, complicates it and confuses it!
” Bad handwriting does not make thinking easier, but, on the contrary, complicates it and confuses it!
There is a well-known maxim: “He who thinks clearly speaks clearly.” It is also true in this expression: “He who speaks clearly, thinks clearly.” This seems to me to be true for written speech as well. The one who clearly expresses his thoughts graphically, in writing, who writes clearly and legibly, thinks clearly, meaningfully, and logically correctly. Handwriting is a reflection of your “clear head”, a reflection of your logical and systematic thinking. If you have a complete confusion on a piece of paper, then you have the same confusion in your head - that’s almost one hundred percent! Almost, not exactly a hundred, because, of course, there are very rare exceptions. I personally know a respected professor, and he writes like a chicken with his paw - an absolutely terrible handwriting that prevents other people from understanding his scientific writing. But he is a wonderful mathematician not because of such terrible and unreadable handwriting, but in spite of it!
Handwriting as an Academic Advantage
I encourage students to take lecture notes. A good note is neat handwriting, highlighting the essential, and a clear understanding of your notes. But I also welcome it when students write cheat sheets for exams, and do it by hand. And here’s what’s important: you need to write cheat sheets before the exam, but you can’t use them during the exam! When I was a student at a pedagogical institute (this was in the mid-1970s), I myself always wrote cheat sheets - both in mathematics and physics. He wrote them, of course, in clear and legible handwriting. After all, in order to write a good cheat sheet, you must, first of all, read the textbook, highlight the main thing there and transfer this main thing to the cheat sheet. Secondly, in the cheat sheet itself you need to highlight this main thing and indicate it graphically. First I wrote a cheat sheet. Then, the second time I read it, I took colored pencils and outlined the most important things in different colors. For example, I highlighted formulas in blue, important definitions in red, etc. It helped tremendously! When I took a ticket during the exam, I didn’t have to get a cheat sheet: it was in my head, I just saw it in my mind - everything was so clearly written and clearly marked. Some careless students now print cheat sheets (technology allows this), but in this case the cheat sheet does much more harm than good.
” The one who clearly expresses his thoughts graphically, in writing, who writes clearly and legibly, thinks clearly, meaningfully, and logically correctly.
My position on handwriting in written works of applicants and students is as follows. When checking papers in physics and mathematics, any doubts in the writing of letters, numbers and formulas are interpreted by me as errors. And this is logically understandable. If you want to be understood, write clearly and legibly! Otherwise, if any “hardening” is interpreted in favor of the student, written work will turn into something completely unreadable. It seems to me that this is the normal point of view of any teacher on handwriting, be it a schoolchild's handwriting or a student's handwriting.
” Legible handwriting is an advantage in school and life.
The only sense in which this statement (long ago separated from Boileau or Schopenhauer) could be absolutely true and, moreover, seems to be accepted by everyone, is (alas, insipid) -
To present a subject clearly, one must at least understand it clearly.
And the accompanying one:
Lack of understanding may be hidden behind unclear presentation.
Only those who know exactly what they want to say can express themselves accurately.,
But in the aphorism under consideration there is something more subtle, namely, that -
An interest in clear understanding itself presupposes an interest in clear (that is, precise) formulations. For, generally speaking, this is actually the same thing: to understand means to formulate.
“To think clearly” means “to formulate clearly”, that is, “to state”...
Although, perhaps, this clear presentation will be obscured by something extraneous by the author, or the clearest presentation may still not be clear to everyone.
Genuine thinking - honest thinking, means one that seeks clarity - and the darkness of the presentation makes one doubt its authenticity. However, not everyone and not always can appreciate the clarity of the presentation. As Lichtenberg said, "If there's a thud when your head hits a book, it's not always the book's fault."
So, if in general there is no difference between the “accuracy” of a formulation and its “clarity” in themselves, then there is a large distance between “accuracy” and “bringing it to clarity for the uninitiated,” “popularity.”
I will dwell on what it means to “popularize”: it means to make something in the subject matter understandable to the uninitiated public, leaving it otherwise uninitiated. Real complete clarity would give the listener the opportunity to operate with the findings themselves, but such an opportunity has not yet been popularized; one has to follow the teacher in everything. They give a “general” (vague) idea, or only the most general clarity.
Of course, in solving this task of popularization, a clear understanding of the subject of presentation is necessary, but it alone is not enough, that’s not the point. The task, as we have seen, is specific. That is why, for example, the best popularizers of science are not always active scientists who have made their own discoveries (although there are some - the need to present complex things as simply as possible helps the latter to achieve the necessary clarity of understanding).
I note that it is easier for popularizers to be clearer than for discoverers - it is easier for them to omit in their presentation the difficulties and vicissitudes of the path to understanding, which only obscure the essence - unless, of course, these vicissitudes constitute the very intrigue of a popular presentation.
In general, popularization - or clarity for laymen - is a special art. The height of the art of popularization is to combine clarity of presentation with its factual accuracy. In the usual case, clarity of presentation is achieved at the expense of incompleteness and thereby inaccuracy. So, it happens that the very clarity of a popular presentation makes one suspect that it is incomplete and inaccurate, what is called schematic or even simplistic, and clearer thinking would no longer fit in with it...
But even here (understanding clarity as popularity) some truth in the aphorism in question remains. It can be observed that -
The clearer you understand a subject, the less, as a rule, you feel the need for special terms.
Anyway -
The more clearly you understand a subject, the more willingly you use everyday words when talking about it.
This is so because “to understand” is to feel and be able to say, and to say is to express it in a common language. For the dignity of language, which is also an instrument of understanding, lies precisely in its universal significance. But the last two aphorisms are more a trend than a law. For universal validity is still not quite the same as common use.
Probably, we should have sorted this out from the very beginning, but what exactly does it mean to “think clearly”, and what does it mean to “state it clearly”?
The expression “think clearly” itself is very unclear. What is meant here: the result of thinking or its process? It seems that one cannot think clearly from the very beginning of the process - the beginning of thinking is always a question, a problem, that is, a disturbing ambiguity. Here you are still striving for clarity, feeling yourself in the dark. They say (contrary to the aphorism considered here!) that everything is not clear to a scientist precisely where the average person does not see the question at all. Anyone who immediately literally “thinks clearly” apparently does not think at all. – So it seems that we can only talk about clear conclusions that have already been obtained or learned. More precisely, it would not be “who thinks clearly...”, but “whoever understands clearly will explain it clearly.” (I remember the joke “I explained and explained until I understood”: until you understand to the very end, you will not become half understandable.) In general, whoever does not think (does not search), but already knows and understands (has found or mastered what he has found) others), he can and should express it clearly. Problems with presentation for those who are looking for.
We have already touched on the discrepancies “clearly stated” when talking about popularizations. What is clear to the initiated is obscure to the profane, and what appears clear to the profane can be a problem for the initiated.
Be that as it may, let us consider what exactly is meant every time, firstly, when they say “whoever thinks clearly...”: (1) some clear conclusions or (2) the search for these conclusions? And secondly, “he clearly states”: do they mean (a) explaining the matter to someone who is already in the know (for example, showing the proof of a theorem to someone who is familiar with the basics of geometry), or (b) “popularizing “, that is, any general ideas about the results of scientific reflections or experiments for non-specialists?
And here we can summarize – combinations (1) and (2) with (a) and (b).
(1a) Set out quite clearly the ready-made conclusions possible, at least to a prepared public (to the extent such preparation is required). If you understand them clearly, then you must present them clearly for your audience. It's a matter of honesty or politeness.
(1b) It is possible to explain some special knowledge to an unprepared public only “simply”, but still it is never completely clear - this means simplified. Nevertheless, popularization is necessary, and this is a special art, the presence of which indicates, but the absence of which does not yet indicate an inability to think.
(2a) Explain The way of thinking It is possible only for those who are fully aware of the problem (this means consulting or discussing), but even here you most likely will not seem clear to anyone.
(2b) And if you present your train of thought, half the work, to the profane, you will seem not only unclear, but also a fool - “a philosopher without cucumbers,” “splitting a hair in two,” etc.
April 2016
Addition
It’s one thing to express your thoughts clearly, it’s something else to make them “understandable to fools,” and quite another to compose something designed for a fool, that is, stupid.
“Express your thoughts clearly” - first of all, it means: moving towards conclusions, present them consistently, without skipping important links in the evidence and without getting hung up on the unimportant.
This art is special. For the paths by which we come to our conclusions are not direct: both why we needed the truth we were looking for, and what prejudices of our own we had to overcome for the sake of it - sometimes it is too important for us to keep silent about it in front of the listener . But, as important as these vicissitudes of the search are to us, they may turn out to be unnecessary for others - who have their own interests and their own prejudices. They will most likely be more important than the paths of logic, in which only straight lines - the shortest distances - will lead from each A to each B and from B to C.
...But what was said is not entirely fair. "More likely", but not necessarily. After all, if we share those same ones prejudices and interests that are the same as those of the people to whom we explain our thoughts - then we are especially clear to them. This is called, for example, “belonging to your time.” Whoever “belongs” to him to the greatest extent is “understandable to the soul” of a person of his time; it is understandable emotionally, and not purely logically - and this is worth a lot... Let it often turn out that after the lapse of of this time, the most beloved ruler of minds, the exponent of thoughts, becomes especially incomprehensible, and not even just dark (confused, confused, etc.) - but strange, even absurd - but that’s only later...
The art of being understandable lies in the ability to be logical and, moreover, not to forget to demonstrate to the listener why exactly your conclusions and refutations may be of interest to him.
“He who thinks clearly speaks clearly.”
What does it mean to “think clearly”? Thinking means getting out of the darkness. Thought clarifies the dark, and must begin with it; it cannot be “clear” from the very beginning! Moreover, as a rule, the darkest ideas turn out to be familiar ones, so it is the thought striving for light that, for those who do not think, darkens everything.
(To get to a simple idea of a globe-Earth, it is necessary to demonstrate that the simplest idea of up and down is in fact extremely dark. A clear thinker, for the average person, casts only a shadow on the fence.)
Maybe the above aphorism means: “Whoever understands well what he says always expresses it clearly”? But it is also difficult to agree with this. If an understandable presentation certainly testifies to the speaker’s understanding of the subject, then, on the contrary, even the most complete understanding of the subject does not guarantee an understandable presentation. The art of being consistent (synonym: clear) requires constant self-reporting of what is already clear at this stage of the explanation and what is not yet clear; when “everything is clear” to you, the whole no longer unfolds into this chain; it has to be specially reconstructed. - Then, it is important, figuratively speaking, that the speaker and the listener express themselves in the same language: so that they are worried about the same thing. Original minds, of course, have special difficulties with this, which is not the place to discuss here.
The only interpretation with which one can agree: “whoever thinks truly, sincerely, strives for clarity - nothing else. And this can most accurately be judged by the manner of its presentation.”
The expression “Make the presentation understandable “for fools”” - if interpreted in the best sense - can mean either: to “chew” the presentation to the utmost, without omitting any links in the evidence, or it does not mean fools, but only uninitiated - uninitiated in the course of those studies, the conclusions of which they intend to present. If you want what is being presented to reach the uninitiated listener without any loss at all, this requirement presupposes the need to “add up” it to the required level.
Such a task is far from always solvable, and therefore it most often comes down to deciphering special terms (by the way, if you can do without them at all, then it’s better to do so), and, most importantly and worst of all, to omitting evidence. The person to whom such speech is addressed can only take note of your conclusions - that is, take note that you have come to such and such conclusions. Without having the opportunity to either confirm or refute what was said, he will gain too little from such knowledge.
“Make (the presentation) understandable to fools”: maybe say what fools like?.. Is this a worthy task?..
Express a false thought clearly and it will refute itself.
L. Vauvenargues
Everyone has stupid thoughts, but smart people don’t express them.
V. Bush
When they cannot soar with their thoughts, they resort to pompous language.
P. Buast
Nothing is more contagious than a misconception supported by a big name.
J. Buffon
It would be a great treasure to preserve good and beautiful human thoughts.
J. Delisle
Lengthy speeches are a very boring thing, and much less people listen to them.
F. Bacon
Acrimony is the irony of an evil mind.
L. Vauvenargues
Books on the topic of the day die along with the topicality.
F. Voltaire
Science freed thought, and free thought freed the people.
P. Berthelot
But everything that was written before was written for our instruction.
Apostle Paul
An overly brilliant style makes both characters and thoughts invisible.
Aristotle
So we are burning with the desire of the sages to hear the speeches.
Aristophanes
Work adds oil to the lamp of life, and thought lights it.
D. Bellers
Only the forbidden word is dangerous.
L. Berne
Thoughts are the wings of the soul.
P. Buast
Sincerity is clarity of soul; clarity is sincerity of thought.
P. Buast
Individual thoughts are like rays of light, which are not as tiring as those collected in a sheaf.
P. Buast
If you want an indestructible monument for yourself, put a good book in your soul.
P. Buast
The genius and spirit of a nation is revealed in its proverbs.
F. Bacon
Books are ships of thought, traveling on the waves of time and carefully carrying their precious cargo from generation to generation.
F. Bacon
Great thoughts come from the heart.
L. Vauvenargues
Clarity is the best decoration of truly deep thought.
L. Vauvenargues
If an aphorism needs explanation, then it is unsuccessful.
L. Vauvenargues
Stealing someone's thoughts is often more criminal than stealing someone's money.
F. Voltaire
Where a great man reveals his thoughts, there is Golgotha.
G. Heine
A person's way of thinking is his deity.
Heraclitus
By the way, people are always incomprehensible.
Heraclitus
Since ancient times, people have had wise and beautiful sayings; We should learn from them.
Herodotus
Paradox is a thought in a state of passion.
G. Hauptmann
A proverb is a mirror of the way of thinking of the people.
I. Herder
That word will not disappear completely, which is repeated by many.
Hesiod
Brave thoughts play the role of advanced checkers in the game: they die, but ensure victory.
I. V. Goethe
Every day you should listen to at least one song, look at a good picture and, if possible, read at least some wise saying.
I. V. Goethe
A condescending attitude towards stupidity is inherent in every intelligent person.
Abul Faraj
When faced with the ambiguity of a word, the mind loses strength.
T. Hobbes
He said the winged word.
Homer
Order frees thought.
R. Descartes
Beautiful expressions decorate a beautiful thought and preserve it.
V. Hugo
Brevity is pleasant when combined with clarity.
Dionysius
The thought must say everything at once - or say nothing.
W. Hellitt
Feelings are the color of thought. Without them, our thoughts are dry, lifeless outlines.
N. V. Shelgunov
Where the thought is strong, the deed is full of power.
W. Shakespeare
A well-expressed thought is always melodic.
M. Shaplan
There is no thought that has not already been expressed by someone.
Terence
To perceive the wisdom of others, you first need independent work.
L. N. Tolstoy
The word is the image of the deed.
Solon
Thought is just lightning in the night, but in that lightning is everything.
A. Poincare
The thrice murderer is the one who kills thought.
R. Rolland
The best thoughts are common property.
Seneca
People get confused in a mass of unnecessary words.
A. M. Gorky
Every person striving forward uses the wealth of the past and his time.
A. Diesterweg
It is not thoughts that need to be taught, but thinking.
I. Kant
Thought without morality is thoughtlessness, morality without thought is fanaticism.
V. O. Klyuchevsky
A person who remembers the words of the wise becomes prudent himself.
A. Kunanbaev
He controlled the flow of thoughts, and only because of that - the country...
B. Sh. Okudzhava
Following the thoughts of a great man is the most interesting science.
A. S. Pushkin
The right to use metaphors should not be a monopoly of poets; it must be presented to scientists as well.
Ya. I. Frenkel
He who thinks independently thinks more significantly and more usefully for everyone.
S. Zweig
I learned a lot from proverbs - otherwise from thinking in aphorisms.
A. M. Gorky
Many who commit the most shameful acts speak beautiful speeches.
Democritus
Deep thoughts are iron nails driven into the mind so that nothing can pull them out.
D. Diderot
The art of aphorism lies not so much in the expression of an original and deep idea, but in the ability to express an accessible and useful thought in a few words.
S. Johnson
Folk wisdom is usually expressed aphoristically.
N. A. Dobrolyubov
Great thoughts come not so much from a great mind as from a great feeling.
F. M. Dostoevsky
Proverbs... constitute the concentrated wisdom of the nation, and the person who is guided by them will not make big mistakes in his life.
N. Douglas
Morals are better expressed in short sayings than in long sermons.
K. Immerman
A person manifests himself in his actions, and not in his thoughts, no matter how noble these thoughts may be.
T. Carlyle
There are short sayings or proverbs that are accepted and used by everyone. Such sayings would not have passed from century to century if they did not seem true to all people.
Quintilian
A thought is bright only when it is illuminated from within with good feelings.
V. O. Klyuchevsky
The path of an aphorism is most often this: from direct quotation... to reinterpretation in accordance with a new creative attitude.
S. Kovalenko
The study of wisdom elevates and makes us strong and generous.
J. Komensky
True eloquence is the ability to say everything that is needed and no more than is needed.
F. La Rochefoucauld
There is grace-filled power in the consonance of living words.
M. Yu. Lermontov
You should not look for deep thought in pretentious style.
G. Lichtenberg
Deep thoughts always seem so simple that we imagine we came up with them ourselves.
A. Mare
The Russian language is a language created for poetry; it is extremely rich and remarkable mainly for the subtlety of its shades.
P. Merimee
He who has a skinny body puts on a lot of clothes; He who has a meager thought inflates it with words.
M. Montaigne
The sum of knowledge and memories accumulated over generations is what our civilization is. You can become its citizen only under one condition - having become acquainted with the thoughts of the generations who lived before us.
A. Maurois
Great truths are too important to be new.
S. Maugham
Follow the rule persistently, so that words are cramped and thoughts are spacious.
N. A. Nekrasov
A successful expression, an apt epithet, a pictorial comparison adds enormously to the pleasure that is delivered to the reader by the very content of a book or article.
D. I. Pisarev
Explanatory expressions explain dark thoughts.
K. Prutkov
It is hard to believe what enormous economies of thought can be achieved by one well-chosen word.
A. Poincare
Aphorisms are literary delicacies. Consume them in small portions, slowly and tastefully.
G. L. Ratner
Proverbs are the product of the experience of all peoples and the common sense of all centuries, translated into formulas.
R. Rivarol
Ancient wisdom bequeathed so many aphorisms that stone by stone they formed an entire indestructible wall.
M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin
For wisdom there is nothing more hateful than philosophizing.
Seneca
Time can do nothing to great thoughts that are as fresh now as when they first arose in the minds of their authors, many centuries ago.
S. Smiles
We are looking through the treasures of ancient wise men that they left in their writings; and if we come across something good, we borrow it and consider it a great profit for ourselves.
Socrates
Aphorisms are the most phenomenal of all everyday facts of knowledge.
P. S. Taranov
The correct dosage of an aphorism: minimum words, maximum meaning.
M. Twain
Short thoughts are good because they force the serious reader to think for himself.
L. N. Tolstoy
The wisest have a rich stock of sayings. Everyone can find a lot of useful advice for life in it.
Theocritus
The enlightened mind... is made up of the minds of all previous centuries.
B. Fontenelle
A poorly expressed good thought is the same as a tastelessly dressed beautiful woman.
Yu. G. Schneider
He who thinks clearly speaks clearly.
A. Schopenhauer
The ultimate goal of eloquence is to persuade people.
F. Chesterfield
© Compiled by: Shamir Tilyaev, 2007
© Published with the kind permission of the author
He who thinks clearly speaks clearly. Learn to communicate clearly, ladies and gentlemen. An instructive chapter from Richard Feynman's book. In the early fifties, I was struck for some time by the disease of middle age: I gave philosophical lectures about science - how science satisfies curiosity, how it gives us a new view of the world, how it provides a person with the opportunity to do different things, how it empowers him force - the question is, in view of the recent creation of the atomic bomb, is it necessary to give a person such force? I was also thinking about the relationship between science and religion, and around this time I was invited to a conference in New York to discuss the “ethics of equality.” A similar conference had already been held for older people, somewhere on Long Island, and this year they decided to invite younger people to discuss the memoranda developed at the previous conference. Even before going to the conference, I received a list of “books that, in all likelihood, you would be interested in reading, and if you think that other participants would like to read some books, then please send them to us, we will put them in the library so others can read them." And it comes with an amazing list of books. I start from the first page: I haven’t read a single book and I feel out of place - I probably shouldn’t go. I look at the second page: I haven’t read a single one. After looking through the entire list, I discover that I have not read any of the suggested books. I must be some kind of idiot, illiterate! There were amazing books on the list, like Thomas Jefferson's On Liberty or something like that, as well as books by several authors that I had read. There was a book by Heisenberg, one book by Schrödinger, one book by Einstein, but they were books like Einstein's My Later Years or What Is Life? Schrödinger - not the ones I read. So, I got the feeling that I couldn't handle it and that I didn't need to get into it. Maybe I'll just sit quietly and listen. I go to the first introductory meeting and some guy stands up and says we have two issues to discuss. The first one is somewhat veiled - something about ethics and equality, but I don’t understand what exactly the problem is. The second: “We will demonstrate through joint efforts that people from different fields can conduct a dialogue with each other.” The conference was attended by an international lawyer, a historian, a Jesuit priest, a rabbi, a scholar (me), etc. Well, my logical mind immediately begins to reason: the second problem is not worth paying attention to, because if it works, then it will work; and if it doesn’t work, it won’t work - there is no need to prove and discuss that we are capable of dialogue if we do not have a dialogue that we are going to talk about! So the main problem is the first one that I didn't understand. I was ready to raise my hand and say: “Would you be so kind as to define the problem more precisely,” but then I thought: “No, I’m a layman; I’d better listen. I don’t want to get into trouble right away.” The subgroup I belonged to was supposed to discuss the “ethics of equality in education.” At our meetings, the Jesuit priest constantly talked about the “sharing of knowledge.” He said: “The real problem with the ethics of equality in education is the division of knowledge.” This Jesuit constantly recalled the thirteenth century, when the Catholic Church was responsible for education and the whole world was simple. There was God, and everything came from God; everything was organized. But today it is not so easy to understand everything. Therefore, knowledge was divided into separate pieces. I felt that "sharing knowledge" had nothing to do with "it", but "it" was never defined, so I saw no way to prove my point. Finally I said: “What ethical problem is connected with the division of knowledge?” I got a cloud of fog in response and said, “I don’t understand,” but everyone else said they understood and tried to explain it to me, but they couldn’t! Then the rest of the group asked me to write why I think sharing knowledge is not an ethical issue. I went back to my room and carefully, to the best of my ability, wrote down my thoughts on the “ethics of equity in education” and gave some examples of issues that I thought we could discuss. For example, when it comes to education, we reinforce differences. If someone is good at something, we try to develop their abilities, which leads to differences, or inequality. So if education increases inequality, is it ethical? Then, after giving a few more examples, I wrote that although "dividing knowledge" is difficult because the complex structure of the world makes many things incredibly difficult to learn, in light of my definition of the scope of this topic, I do not see no connection between the sharing of knowledge and anything more or less close to what might constitute an ethic of equality in education. The next day I brought what I had written to the meeting, and the guy said, "Mr. Feynman did raise some very interesting points that we should discuss, and we will put them aside for possible future discussion." They didn't understand anything at all. I have tried to define the problem and show that the "division of knowledge" has nothing to do with it. And the reason why no one came to anything at this conference was that the organizers failed to clearly define the subject of the “ethics of equality in education”, and therefore no one knew exactly what to talk about. There was one sociologist at the conference who wrote a paper for all of us to read - he wrote it in advance. I started reading this devilish thing, and my eyes just popped out of my sockets: I couldn’t understand a damn thing about it! I thought that the reason was that I had not read a single book from the suggested list. I had this uncomfortable feeling of “inadequacy” until I finally said to myself, “I’m going to stop and read one sentence slowly to figure out what the hell it means.” So I stopped - at random - and read the next sentence very carefully. I don't remember it exactly now, but it was something like: "The individual member of a social society often receives information through visual, symbolic channels." I struggled with it for a long time, but finally translated it. Do you know what this means? "People are reading." Then I moved on to the next sentence and realized that I could translate that too. Then it turned into an empty exercise: “Sometimes people read; sometimes people listen to the radio,” etc. But all this was written so intricately that at first I didn’t even understand, but when I finally deciphered it, it turned out that it was complete nonsense. There was only one thing that happened at this meeting that pleased me, or at least amused me. Every word that every speaker uttered at the plenary session was so important that a stenographer was hired to type the whole damn thing. Probably on the second day, the stenographer came up to me and asked: “What do you do? You, of course, are not a professor.” - I'm just a professor. - What? - Physics - sciences. - ABOUT! So that must be the reason, he said. - Reason for what? He said, “You see, I am a stenographer and I type everything that is said here. When everyone else is talking, I type everything they say without understanding a word. But every time you get up to ask a question or something “That is to say, I understand everything you mean - what the essence of the question is or what you are saying - that’s why I thought that you simply cannot be a professor!” At some point in the conference there was a special dinner, during which the head of the theologians, a very pleasant man, a true Jew, gave a speech. The speech was good, and he was an excellent speaker, and although now, when I tell it, his main idea seems complete nonsense, at the time it seemed completely obvious and absolutely true. He talked about the colossal differences in the welfare of different countries, which cause envy, which, in turn, leads to conflicts, and now that we have atomic weapons, no matter what war happens, we are all doomed, and therefore the right solution is , to make every effort to preserve the peace, by making sure that there are no such grandiose differences between different countries, and since we have so much in the United States, we must give almost everything to other countries until we are all equal. Everyone listened to this, everyone felt the desire to make such a sacrifice, and everyone believed that this is exactly what we should do. But on the way home my sanity returned. The next day one of our group members said, “I think the speech given last night was so good that we should all sign it and submit it as a summary of our conference.” I started to say that the whole idea of distributing everything equally is based on the theory that there is only x amount of everything in the world, that somehow we took it away from poorer countries first, and therefore we should give it back to them. But this theory does not take into account the real reason for the differences that exist between countries - that is, the development of new methods of growing food, the development of technology for growing food and much more, and the fact that all this technology requires a concentration of capital. What matters is not the property we have, but the ability to create this property. But now I understand that these people were not scientists; they didn't understand it. They didn't understand technology; they did not understand their time. The conference left me in such a nervous state that my New York friend had to calm me down. “Listen,” she said, “you’re just shaking! You’re already crazy! Take it easier, don’t take everything so seriously. Step aside for a minute and soberly assess the situation.” I thought about the conference and how crazy it was, and it wasn't that bad. But if someone asked me to take part in something like that again, I would run away from them like crazy - never! No! Absolutely not! But even today I receive invitations to such gatherings. When it came time to evaluate the conference, everyone started talking about how much it had given them, how successful it was, etc. When asked, I said, “This conference was worse than a Rorschach test: when they show you a meaningless inkblot and ask you what you think you see, and when you tell them what, they start arguing with you! "It was even worse: at the end of the conference they were going to have another meeting, which this time would be attended by the public, and the guy in charge of our group had the guts to say that since we had developed so much, there was no time for public discussion All this won't be enough, so we'll just tell the public about everything we've developed. My eyes popped out of my head: I thought we hadn't developed a damn thing! Finally, when we were discussing the question of whether we had developed a way dialogue between people of different specialties - which was our second main "problem" - I said that I noticed something interesting. Each of us spoke about what we think about the "ethics of equality" from our own bell tower, not paying no attention to what others think. For example, a historian said that ethical problems can be understood by looking into history and seeing how they emerged and developed; an international lawyer said that this requires looking at how people actually behaved in different situations and how they came to some agreements; the Jesuit priest kept referring to the "division of knowledge"; I, as a scientist, proposed to first isolate the problem, just as Galileo did when conducting his experiments, etc. “So, in my opinion,” I said, “we had no dialogue at all. We had nothing but chaos!” Of course everyone immediately started attacking me. “Don’t you think that order can emerge from chaos?” - Well, yes, in general, or... - I didn’t know what to do with a question like “Can order arise from chaos?” Yes, no, so what? This conference was just full of fools - pompous fools - and the pompous fools are driving me up the wall. There is nothing terrible about ordinary fools; you can talk to them and try to help. But pompous fools - fools who hide their stupidity and try to show everyone how smart and wonderful they are with the help of such deception - I JUST CAN’T STAND THESE! An ordinary fool is not a fraud; There's nothing wrong with an honest fool. But a dishonest fool is terrible! And that's exactly what I got at the conference: a whole bunch of pompous fools, which really upset me. I don’t want to be so upset anymore, and therefore I will never participate in interdisciplinary conferences. - “Of course you’re joking, Mr. Feynman!”