Marsha Woerner reviewed Half-Life of Facts by Samuel Arbesman
Review of 'Half-Life of Facts' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
What a lot of concepts covered! Facts are gathered at all kinds of different speeds; they could be important on a secondly or a millennial basis, and how often they are gathered often relates to how long they persist. But it's generally important to know how current particular fact is, and how long it's likely to be important.
He goes into "Moore's law": the doubling of technology available per unit of space each year, and how likely it is that said "law" is likely to hold, and when and HOW it's likely to become outdated and discarded.
As an instance, the fact of the usefulness and extent of technology and the fact of the limits of our medical knowledge are constantly changing. And how much of that is necessary to actually know as opposed to know where to look it up is just another "fact" that's important.
The length of …
What a lot of concepts covered! Facts are gathered at all kinds of different speeds; they could be important on a secondly or a millennial basis, and how often they are gathered often relates to how long they persist. But it's generally important to know how current particular fact is, and how long it's likely to be important.
He goes into "Moore's law": the doubling of technology available per unit of space each year, and how likely it is that said "law" is likely to hold, and when and HOW it's likely to become outdated and discarded.
As an instance, the fact of the usefulness and extent of technology and the fact of the limits of our medical knowledge are constantly changing. And how much of that is necessary to actually know as opposed to know where to look it up is just another "fact" that's important.
The length of time that individual facts can be counted on is variable, depending on the context. But it seems that, for the most part, a "fact" has a limited life.
