The strange case of the bumble-bee that flew

I get many strange reactions from people when I tell them I am a scientist. Frequently I'll be told by my new acquaintances that they were hopeless at science at school, or I'll be asked if I make atom bombs. People, it seems, are frightened by science, so they take every opportunity to belittle it. They'd like to believe that science is all very well in the lab and for making bombs, but that it doesn't apply to real life. The comic-songwriter Michael Flanders summed it up beautifully when he said that he cannot understand scientists and they cannot understand anyone else. Scientists must be spoken to in their own language: " H2SO4 Professor! Don't synthesize anything I wouldn't synthesize! And the reciprocal of π to your good wife!"