[Ads-l] Quote: An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The QI website now has an article about the saying in the subject line.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/10/19/barmaid/

The Yale Book of Quotations has a somewhat recent citation. Wikiquote
has a 1973 citation. Nigel Rees (in his October 2019 newsletter) says
the saying was attributed to Ernest Rutherford by 1965. The QI article
gives a 1955 citation.

[ref] 1955 November, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal
Society, Volume 1, Albert Einstein 1879-1955 by Edmund Whittaker,
Start Page 37, Quote Page 54, Published by Royal Society, United
Kingdom. (JSTOR) link [/ref]

https://www.jstor.org/stable/769242

[Begin excerpt]
Some of it may have been due to the popular principle attributed to
Rutherford, that an alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless
it can be explained to a barmaid.
[End excerpt]

Feedback welcome
Garson

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