“Today, science tends to be written by experts for experts. A serious communication on a scientific subject assumes so much specialized knowledge on the part of the reader that it usually cannot be read at all by anyone not learned in the field. There are obvious advantages to this approach, not least that it serves to advance science more quickly. Experts talking to each other about their expertise can arrive very quickly at the frontiers of it -- they can see the problems at once and begin to try to solve them. But the cost is equally obvious. You -- the ordinary intelligent reader whom we are addressing in this book -- are left quite out of the picture.”