It's like an Operating System...

Mac OS X Leopard
Originally uploaded by [mac][mac]

I was listening to the Today programme on the way in to work this morning and I heard a chap called Dr Craig Venter describing his team's advance towards the creation of synthetic life.

I thought the report was interesting for a few reasons. Firstly, I thought it was an interesting topic. I find the science and the ethical issues interesting. Secondly, I thought it was interesting how hard the scientist found it to explain what had been achieved in a way that made sense to people outside his field. He couldn't help himself - he kept lapsing into science-speak. It reinforced what I already knew: good teachers should be smart and know their subject but being smart and knowing your subject does not in itself make you a good teacher.

Thirdly, and the main reason I decided to write this blog post, I thought the analogy that was used to explain what they had achieved was interesting. After trying a couple of times (unsuccessfully) to get Dr Venter to explain the breakthrough in simple terms, the interviewer gave him a very big steer and the Doctor picked up the analogy that had been thrown at him. He described the very complex biochemistry they had worked on as like writing an operating system but that they still had to install it on the computer and boot it up.

Why did I think that was interesting? It struck home to me just how mainstream computers have become. It's not that long ago when computers were strange and mysterious machines, surrounded by incomprehensible jargon like... well, like "operating system" and "boot". Yet, here complex science was being made more accessible to the listeners by using computers as an analogy. Interesting - no?

Have you come across other examples where computers have been used to explain difficult to understand concepts?

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