“You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”
I know what an Higg’s particle is. I have done some elementary reading on it. I have watched Brian Cox’s presentation on the LHC at TED. I have read the SCIAM article “The Coming Revolutions in Particle Physics”. I know enough about the Higg’s particle to sound learned and impressive at the lunch table. Maybe even to the extent of being able to regurgitate a bit at a barcamp.
But will it be ever the same as getting down to the bowels of quantum mechanics and arriving at the particle mathematically? Will it ever equal at arriving at the big equation of everything and finding that you will have to introduce the big ‘H’ to make it work? Sometime this year, I got a piece of good advice: “Don’t be a quizzer”. Being a avid quizzer myself, I know exactly what the person was talking about. Quizzers know a lot of stuff - history, geography, economics, current affairs, arts, the sciences – and most of it is superficial, or should I say “partial”.
I am not a quantum physicist or even a physicist. Maybe I need not know more than what I know currently about the Higg’s particle. Neither does a zoologist need to know about “the pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization” nor does a historian need to know about “advanced Fourier series” or “organic chemistry”. But in this day and age of Wikipedia and Google, does a “zoologist” even need to know his Chordata from his Annelida?
Being a polymath is different from being continuous partial. A polymath has in-depth knowledge of more than one field. A “continuous partial” has superficial knowledge in one too many fields. It is also a different matter to try out one’s hand at different fields to fall in love and become an expert in one of them. A “continuous partial” does not fall in love but rather continues to acquire partial knowledge throughout his lifetime. The entire idea is beautifully summed up in the statement by Richard Feynman which appears at the beginning of this blog.
So, is being “continuous partial” when it comes to knowledge, good or bad? The jury is still out on this one!
That is exactly what I’ve been advocating all along. The day when PHD’s actualy meant something are gone (along with BELL Labs) .. and thats exactly where Google and Wikipedia come into play. Knowledge in the cloud which has commoditized it. and this commoditization happened thanks to the WWW and Wikipedia and the day anything gets commoditized everybody gains. All the more reason why our brains need to be directly hooked up into Google and Wikipedia. Well we are almost there though.. a phone with 3G and a good browser is one step in that direction..
oh btw, the business world knows “Polymaths vs Continous Partials” as Generalists and Specialists.
In the field of work that I am, I need to be Generalist to be successful. For things that are close to my heart, I tend to learn more about it everyday. Someday I will be a specialist in that field. On the other hand, I might get bored of these as well and might end up not being a specialist in any field at all.
If I apply the 80-20 rule, the world will work with 20% specialist and 80% Generalist.
This is what my friend Hariharan an Expert continous partial as well as a cool polymath had to say when I was discussing with him regarding this.Could sound abit vulgar .you can delete it if its too bad.
“it comes down to theperson…most would prefer a string ofone night stands rather be tied down toone girl….that dosent mean that thetrend continues lifelong…when i see areally happily married couple truly inlove with each other, i would feel maybeeven i should find that someone and getsettled…pretty much the same way youfeel when you see a real expert on asubject….but then someone said”those who fail to write science, end upwriting about science”…notsure how exactly true it is….does that meanthose who have superflousknowledge on a lot of subjects do so because they werefailures in any onespecific field which they had liked earlier??? its difficultto conclude thatway too…take sujatha or mano for instance….guess its twodifferent kinds ofpeople…and the grass is greener on the other side story.and about thepolymath and continuos partial stuff…i feel they are just differentextensions along the same spectrum…im sure a polymath would not be as good insomething compared to a person who has done only that thing for his whole life.
Just as guy A feels bad abt not able to experience the importance of the gibbsparticle in the “bowels” of quantum mechanics like the quantum mechgod B, im sure B would feel something similar when A recognizes “sweet child of mine” just from the lead in a rock concertattended by A,B and the hot chick C. And if B dosent feel bad, its not becausehe is an expert in quantum mechanics greater than A, its because he knows themeaning of life….which anybody can know …and according to me is theonly thing worth knowing for true happiness”.
Well look at the bright-side I learnt something.