About ClearlyExplained.com
ClearlyExplained.com is a personal science communication and explainer website by Richard Conan-Davies. It began in 2000 as part of a Science Communication Masters project at the Australian National University, and has since become a mixture of reference notes, explanatory articles, commentary, and experiments in AI-assisted explanation.
The site was originally designed to give clear overviews of topics across science, nature, culture and technology. Some pages draw on public reference material such as Wikipedia, while others are original notes based on first principles, observation, or personal commentary.
In the age of Wikipedia and large language models, ClearlyExplained.com is no longer trying to be a complete encyclopedia. It is better understood as a curated notebook: a place for clear explanations, older reference pages, revised notes, and conversations with AI tools where useful.
Some pages are historical and may reflect the web, science communication, or AI tools as they existed at the time they were written. Newer sections may include AI-assisted content, but the aim remains the same: to make complicated things a little clearer.