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I was forced by my supervisor to give a twenty five minute talk with five minutes of questions. It had to be on a fundamental problem that impinged on our work.
I chose to talk about signal to noise of x-ray crystallographic data of protein molecules and how it's maximisation was critical to elucidating the solution.
Not one person in the audience was below degree standard in fact most had PhD's in science.
There were about 150 people in the audience. I started and it was obvious to me that my dumbing down of the talk did not go far enough! There was a sea of faces with eyes that were glazed over. I persisted hoping they may get it eventually.
I knew I had lost them completely when there was not one question! My supervisor then asked a pertinent question to get things going. I answered him and it was obvious he did not even get what I was talking about!
It is very difficult when you live eat and breathe an esoteric set of concepts for many years to explain them to others.
I overheard one senior scientist say on his way out 'I did not understand anything that Bert said but he must be a very smart bloke'. I wondered how he could even begin to judge, with such a paucity of any knowledge of what I was doing!
I will let you work out how difficult it is to address an audience that is relatively scientifically totally ignorant.
Bert
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