One famous quote of the legendary Einstein goes “If you can’t explain a concept to a 6-year-old, you don’t fully understand it.”
The genius of this quote is that it forces you to unleash the power of analogy. And not just any analogy. Analogy with concepts and relationships that are clear, simple and vivid enough to be understood by a 6-year-old. It’s amazing how doing this might help us gain insight and vision into complex subjects. This quote simply implies that any complex subject can always be reduced to a simple analogy or example. But is it always possible? May be.
In all cases, only if you have enough understanding of a topic you then will be able to simplify it to the desired degree. This activity sparks your mind’s associative powers to find a simpler, similar set of concrete concepts from your everyday life. Not only can that lead you to better understand the topic, but even can let you uncover new insights into the original complex problem that you’re trying to explain. While you’re thinking about the analogy, your mind would use these thoughts to reflect on the original problem. This may lead you to find astonishingly simple solutions to complex problems, only because you have used a proper analogy to filter out the unneeded complexities of the original problem. I’ve experienced this many times myself.
All in all, I found this quote to be a great test against which I can test my own knowledge and insight about a subject – or even simply a technique to obtain a fresh perspective on a challenging problem. So… can you explain it to a 6-year-old kid?
