5 ms·

I think that also has to do with the amount of complexity. Henri Poincaré is often said to have been the last man who knew all of math. Today, you need research

I think that also has to do with the amount of complexity. Henri Poincaré is often said to have been the last man who knew all of math. Today, you need research teams across the world working on a very narrow topic to make tiny progress iteratively in the best case. I think the time when one man could bring us a century forward like Newton or Einstein is gone.

questinthrow 3y ago
Yeah the quantity and complexity of what you need to know now is daunting. But even so I dont think Einstein for example had to know the entirety of physics and math in order to produce a groundbreaking revolution in physics.
mandmandam 3y ago
> I think the time when one man could bring us a century forward like Newton or Einstein is gone. I'm certain his contemporaries said the same about Pythagoras. You're not wrong about how much more complex things have gotten, certainly. But you don't know what you don't know. Another Ramanujan or von Neumann could be right around the corner. Just look at all the wasted potential in our education system - it's impossible to quantify just how much effort is profoundly wasted. This article points directly to that wastage. We've tolerated an academic system that's hated by just about everyone except publishers, in an era where publishing is as close to free as it could be.
- lupire 3y ago
  There is not room to make education a million times more efficient and effective for one single person. A brain has extreme physical limits. Computers can do it because they can combine millions of computers to work together, limited only by asymptomatic constraints like the Amdahl's law.
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    You don't know what the limits of brains are. People like von Neumann show that we really have no idea what the upper bound on braininess is. Now, start extending that limit by integrating computers? The options are literally unimaginable. But that all kinda misses the point, which is, there's a lot of low lying fruit that we're leaving unpicked.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  >> I think the time when one man could bring us a century forward like Newton or Einstein is gone. > I'm certain his contemporaries said the same about Pythagoras. Pythagoras is best known as the center of a mystery cult. What did he bring a century forward?
  - Someone 3y ago
    I think he’s best known for his alleged mathematical discoveries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras#In_mathematics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras#In_mathematics: “Although Pythagoras is most famous today for his alleged mathematical discoveries, classical historians dispute whether he himself ever actually made any significant contributions to the field. […] The Pythagorean theorem was known and used by the Babylonians and Indians centuries before Pythagoras, but he may have been the first to introduce it to the Greeks. Some historians of mathematics have even suggested that he—or his students—may have constructed the first proof. Burkert rejects this suggestion as implausible, noting that Pythagoras was never credited with having proved any theorem in antiquity.”
    - thaumasiotes 3y ago
      What mathematical discoveries? You just quoted wikipedia saying that (1) he's most famous for his alleged mathematical discoveries, and (2) he is not alleged to have made any mathematical discoveries.

questinthrow 3y ago

Yeah the quantity and complexity of what you need to know now is daunting. But even so I dont think Einstein for example had to know the entirety of physics and math in order to produce a groundbreaking revolution in physics.

mandmandam 3y ago

> I think the time when one man could bring us a century forward like Newton or Einstein is gone. I'm certain his contemporaries said the same about Pythagoras. You're not wrong about how much more complex things have gotten, certainly. But you don't know what you don't know. Another Ramanujan or von Neumann could be right around the corner. Just look at all the wasted potential in our education system - it's impossible to quantify just how much effort is profoundly wasted. This article points directly to that wastage. We've tolerated an academic system that's hated by just about everyone except publishers, in an era where publishing is as close to free as it could be.

lupire 3y ago
There is not room to make education a million times more efficient and effective for one single person. A brain has extreme physical limits. Computers can do it because they can combine millions of computers to work together, limited only by asymptomatic constraints like the Amdahl's law.
- mandmandam 3y ago
  You don't know what the limits of brains are. People like von Neumann show that we really have no idea what the upper bound on braininess is. Now, start extending that limit by integrating computers? The options are literally unimaginable. But that all kinda misses the point, which is, there's a lot of low lying fruit that we're leaving unpicked.
thaumasiotes 3y ago
>> I think the time when one man could bring us a century forward like Newton or Einstein is gone. > I'm certain his contemporaries said the same about Pythagoras. Pythagoras is best known as the center of a mystery cult. What did he bring a century forward?
- Someone 3y ago
  I think he’s best known for his alleged mathematical discoveries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras#In_mathematics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras#In_mathematics: “Although Pythagoras is most famous today for his alleged mathematical discoveries, classical historians dispute whether he himself ever actually made any significant contributions to the field. […] The Pythagorean theorem was known and used by the Babylonians and Indians centuries before Pythagoras, but he may have been the first to introduce it to the Greeks. Some historians of mathematics have even suggested that he—or his students—may have constructed the first proof. Burkert rejects this suggestion as implausible, noting that Pythagoras was never credited with having proved any theorem in antiquity.”
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    What mathematical discoveries? You just quoted wikipedia saying that (1) he's most famous for his alleged mathematical discoveries, and (2) he is not alleged to have made any mathematical discoveries.