On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 5:18 PM, Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com wrote:
In Italian Wikipedia, for example, we have had long time ago a project with the aim to create a structure of any article of physics with a section for "easy readers".
The project has failed because the most difficult point for a physician is to explain a complicated concept with easy concepts (and not necessary with easy words).
Explaining without technical terms inside of the introduction is good idea, but it is not good idea to explain all aspects in simple language. For example, I see nothing problematic in the article Photosynthesis on en.wp [1] or with the Second law of thermodynamics [2], although I am not a biologist nor physicist.
In the first case, it is hard to me to follow the article from the section "Light reactions". In the second case, it is hard to me to follow the article from the section "Available useful work". But, the fact that my knowledge about those phenomena is not so good doesn't mean that those articles should be dumb enough to explain to me all of the things. If I want to understand photosynthesis and the second law of thermodynamics, I should spend enough time in understanding other concepts. Wikipedia in English has everything needed for understanding those two concepts.
So if someone is willing to understand photosynthesis or the second law of thermodynamics, he or she has choice: (1) to be content with introduction or (2) to learn everything needed to understand both of them.
*Some* professions have ordinary language-like registers. Law is one of them. But, there should be an encyclopedic article (or more of them or book...) which describes that registry.
Explaining not obvious phenomena is not possible without learning in layers. The fact that there are very complex and hard to understand science fields means exactly that: there are complex and hard to understand science fields. Some people doesn't like that fact, but it is the problem of that person, not the problem of scientists.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics