IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

THIS EXPRESSION refers to something that is not difficult.

For example: Come on, it’s only a crossword, it’s not rocket science.

The phrase ‘It ain’t rocket science’ originated from the United States in the wake of the World War II, after they adopted the sustained programme for the development of rocket science. The first people who were widely known as rocket scientists were a group of German military technologists. They were transported to the US in 1945 following their capture by allied troops in WWII.

Other similar groups were transported to the UK and the USSR.

They successfully created some sophisticated technologies required for military and space rockets. Their success was the reason for rocket science being equated in the US public’s mind with sophisticated expertise.

The perceived equation of ‘rocket scientist = German = clever’ can only have been enhanced by the persona of another German scientist of acknowledged genius, who was also working in the USA at the time Albert Einstein.

By 1950, rocket science was generally accepted as being intellectually difficult and outside the capabilities of the average. Relatively undemanding tasks were being said to be ‘not rocket science’.

Most of the early citations of ‘not rocket science’ relate to football. For example, this piece from a sports report in the Pennsylvania newspaper The Daily Intelligencer, 1985:

“Coaching football is not rocket science and it’s not brain surgery. It’s a game, nothing more.”

Prior to the 1980s, ‘brain surgery’ had been the occupation that simple tasks were said not to be.