The sum total of human knowledge is doubling every four years

[chrisrob]

In 1992, at a computers and education conference, the keynote speaker on the subject, "Information Overload" produced the above quotation (which I have heard in mnay forms since and now is predicted to soon be: "The sum total of human knowledge is doubling every year!"

But does anyone know who first said it? (I'm not after the Biblical: "Knowledge shall increase" (Daniel 12:4))

I used to use the quotation myself when, as a speaker at Parent and education meetings likened it to, if all the world's knowledge could be written on a single sheet of A4 when a child started school, we would need a telephone directory when that child finished fromal education. It was a plea to teach not facts but how to find those facts. Something that is still overlooked in schools.

[TCL-MUMPING]

Erm, if the knowledge doubles every four years, even after sixteen years' education, that single A4 sheet would increase to sixteen sheets, hardly a 'phone directory. Am I missing something here?

[R1Geezer]

It' b0llux anyway. Data may well double, information may increase but knowledge? nahh very rarely does that increase. How often does a new peice of knowledge come along? It happens yes but I'd say 95% of what we know now we new 100 years ago.

[chrisrob]

Zacmaster - I think we're in agreement.
What's the point of didactic education if we can learn to access information for ourselves and to make new discoveries?

TCL-MUMPING - It's hyperbolic. Did you know if you folded a sheet of paper 44 times, it would reach the moon?

RIGeezer - Interesting semantics. Do we know what knowledge is?

[R1Geezer]

Well in the sense I mean here it is understanding and discovery. I don't mean in the pub quiz sense that's just knowing things that are known else where. But if a new force is discovered or perhaps a new mathemetical technique is developed, that would be what I'm talking about. If the LHC finds the Higgs boson for example then that will be seen as new knowledge. If we discover how to make nuclear fusion produce more energy than it consumes, that would be new knowledge. etc etc

[TCL-MUMPING]

It seems odd that in a speech about knowledge, facts and how to find out about them, you obviously did not check yir own �fact� and to call it hyperbole, is a poor excuse .

[chrisrob]

Not hyperbolic as in hyperbole, a figurative device, but as in hyperbolic functions.

[TCL-MUMPING]

Are you sure you do not mean exponential? Either way, the figures do not support you,

YEAR PAGES
0 1
4 2
8 4
12 8
16 16
20 32
24 64
28 128
32 256
36 512

[Gliktch]

TCL-Mumping, you're so wrong that I feel the need to reach back two years in time to correct you :P

Year | Pages
0 | 1
1 | 2
2 | 4
3 | 8
4 | 16
5 | 32
6 | 64
7 | 128
8 | 256
9 | 512
10 | 1024
etc...

[Gliktch]

Of course, that only applies if you go by the content of his 'question' rather than the title...