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There are various types of network effects that happen as a result of larger populations. Greater use of specialization and comparative advantage. Economies of
by nwah1 7y ago
There are various types of network effects that happen as a result of larger populations. Greater use of specialization and comparative advantage. Economies of scale. Agglomeration. All of these tendencies allow for niche fields like quantum physics to be viable.
A very tiny fraction of the population is capable of understanding it, and to keep it a thriving discipline, we need people actively studying it. Statistically speaking, if only one in a million people is capable of understanding it, then you're in trouble if you don't have that many millions, and if the people with the capabilities are required in other equally important fields.
Transmitting this information purely through written works is extremely difficult if there are no living mentors. And the resources necessary for something like CERN are vast, and only possible to fund in an enormous economy.
Same story with semiconductors, rockets, MRI machines, and most other important technologies.
- marcosdumay 7y ago> All of these tendencies allow for niche fields like quantum physics to be viable. Well, Quantum Physics was created by a population that was approximately 1/6 of ours.
- nitwit005 7y agoBecoming hyper specialized appears to eventually create productivity issues. Scientists have sometimes made progress just by applying ideas from one specialized part of physics to another, where they were unaware of the progress in related ideas. And there are more mundane costs. The more specialized you are, the higher the odds your tiny niche will go away due to market or technological changes. That means losing income retraining and finding new work.
- jes5199 7y agowell what if we managed to keep a stable population of a few billion? we've already demonstrated that it's a sufficient number for all the processes you named