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I think things are too different today to make comparisons like that. In the last 50 years, our collective knowledge has grown at a pace that is incomparable t
by rybosworld 5y ago
I think things are too different today to make comparisons like that.
In the last 50 years, our collective knowledge has grown at a pace that is incomparable to other periods of time. Something that falls out of that is that the open problems in a particular field are much more difficult to solve.
It is also true that the knowledge is much more widespread. For instance, many CS undergrads are expected to learn game theory. What was once an advanced topic is now just part of the curriculum.
Basically the common denominator has risen in a way that is much more difficult for a single mind to seem comparatively impressive.
- mjreacher 5y agoI agree, all the easy problems are solved so only hard ones are left, but the issue of widespread knowledge doesn't seem to be as important to me. The difficulty in a lot of fields is not for example picking up undergraduate knowledge in game theory or whatever, calculus was once an advanced topic but we can teach it to 12 year olds now, but making deep contributions to fields because as you say the easy problems have been picked so either you have to introduce a new paradigm or you have to have an ever growing amount of prerequisite material to know beforehand to contribute something new of significance.