What percentage of all human scientific knowledge....

What percentage of all human scientific knowledge....

Author
Discussion

paul.deitch

Original Poster:

2,106 posts

258 months

Saturday 23rd November 2013
quotequote all
... does a typical person enjoy? I imagine that it is a difficult question to answer accurately but never the less interesting. I Googled but could not find any related answers. As a guess I imagine that it would be minute, let's say 1/100,000,000,000 as scientific knowledge increases every day, but does anyone else have a more informed estimate or has it been calculated before?

SpeckledJim

31,608 posts

254 months

Saturday 23rd November 2013
quotequote all
How is a 'piece' of information quantified in order to be measured?

Simpo Two

85,595 posts

266 months

Saturday 23rd November 2013
quotequote all
As you say it will be verging on nothing, but I did hear that the last time that any one person could know all that the human race knew was in the time of the Great Library of Alexandria. And then the Romans burnt it down, so you didn't have to know so much to be clever - which was a handy way to give the Roman kids Grade As spin

tapkaJohnD

1,945 posts

205 months

Sunday 24th November 2013
quotequote all
One Hundred Per cent.

So much of Physics is still not understood, and we can consider all the other sciences as mere applications of Physics. As we are creatures whose existence depends on ill understood physics, we "enjoy" everything we do know but that is a small part of what we could know.

John

Eric Mc

122,086 posts

266 months

Sunday 24th November 2013
quotequote all
What has enjoyment got to do with it?

PowerfullyBuilt

131 posts

179 months

Thursday 5th December 2013
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Isn't it more of a philosophical question, rather than a scientific one?

I'd say close to zero - some of the happiest people are those with the least interest in scientific knowledge. Ignorance is bliss and all that.

I for one find it incredibly depressing that I'll know very few answers to the great astrophysical questions in my lifetime, and I'm not yet 30.

mrmr96

13,736 posts

205 months

Thursday 5th December 2013
quotequote all
tapkaJohnD said:
One Hundred Per cent.

So much of Physics is still not understood, and we can consider all the other sciences as mere applications of Physics.
Not quite.... wink