Chapter 41 Use images to make events easy to understand

How far is the moon from the earth?What about away from the sun?What about the rest of the planets?Scientists usually like to use numbers to answer many questions like space travel.However, a speaker or writer who talks about scientific subjects knows that it is difficult to get a clear idea of ​​the general audience and readers, so it is better to visualize this material. A few years ago, a student in a training class described the astonishing record of casualties on the highway: "You are driving from New York to Los Angeles. Along the way, the road markings on the highway disappear. There are coffins full of people who died in a car accident on the road last year. You drive forward and you find a coffin every five seconds, from one end of the road to the other.”

Since hearing this description, I have never dared to drive too far from home in the future. Why is this so?Because the impression we hear from our ears alone is not easy to retain.But what about the impression of the eyes?A few years ago, I saw a cannonball on the banks of the Danube embedded in an old house on the embankment—it was the cannonball fired by Napoleon during the "Battle of Ulm", and the visual impression was just like that cannonball All the same, it will have a terrible impact, embedded in our memory, and expel all unfavorable suggestions, just as Napoleon expelled the Austrians of his time.