John Ciardi was referring to translation in the literary sense with his quote, but it’s an instructive statement in the scientific world as well. Have you ever tried to explain a complex concept and only gotten a blank stare in return or read a highly technical article and thought to yourself “What on earth did I just read?!” This is a common problem that hampers progress in science and technology. Our modern society is based on how well experts translate complex scientific concepts to non-experts in other fields to be utilized in simplified way. Translation is never an easy process and as the quote suggests is never perfect. Although it's struggle, learning how to translate your in-depth knowledge and experience into an accessible form for others is a critical skill.

In my previous blog I challenged the common question I am asked about the “next steps for materials discovery.” I want to dive into more depth as this is central to the focus of my blog and even motivated the blog name “Rebooting Materials.” In my current role I speak with a wide variety of companies from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, from people at universities to National Labs. I always stress the real challenges that exist in taking good ideas in research and development of new materials and chemistries and translating them into impacts on a real world product especially at the nanotechnology scale. I am primarily a theoretician in training who focuses on applying models to generate new insight and ideas. When I started my career, it was easier to work and think mostly in the world of the models I used. If I hadn’t learned later in my career keep my feet firmly planted in the real world, I wouldn’t be where I am today, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t bumps and setbacks along the way.