“How was your day?”

I just wish I could do that job all day long. I know that I would love it.

If you’ve ever listened to a scientific presentation or read a piece on some research topic, you know it’s super easy to get lost. Even if you have a vague idea of what’s going on, the sheer density of many presentations or expositions can be intimidating. Couple this with the tendency people have to give too much information or to assume too much of the reader, and it’s no wonder that most scientific work is incomprehensible to the majority of people (even other scientists!).

The above word is one that I think a lot about as a physicist. That’s because there are two ways in which the word is used around me, with one being very detrimental to students.