Archinect - News 2024-11-21T12:24:22-05:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/150171511/complexity-over-clarity-what-happens-when-we-try-to-sound-too-smart Complexity over clarity? What happens when we try to sound too "smart" Sean Joyner 2019-11-21T15:05:00-05:00 >2023-09-12T20:31:08-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/13/134be369dc0c3c9081e4a6acfa22c416.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><p>Earlier this week, I&nbsp;was reading a brief for an exhibition at a well-known school of architecture and something stood out to me, something that seems to be a typical case in academic circles. I read this prompt, which was probably about 500 words. At the end, I&nbsp;had no idea what the exhibition was about. I read it a couple more times and finally got a general sense of what they were trying to say.&nbsp;</p> <p>The primary premise of the event could have been communicated in a clearer way, but because of the obscure word choice, bizarre passages, and melodramatic jargon, the purpose of this writing, which was to communicate the intent of the exhibition, became overwhelmingly lost.</p> Feynman, Einstein, and Occam's Razor <p>Once, David Goodstein, a colleague of the theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, said to the Nobel Prize recipient, "Dick, explain to me, so that I can understand it, why spin one-half particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics." Feynman looked at Goodstein and said, "I'll prepare a fresh...</p>