encoded notions

Perhaps the oscillatory nature of my academic interests is an advantage.

It keeps me from going too far down any one path before coming back to center and persuing something else to an equal depth. In the scientific community the tendency is to learn something extremely well and specialize, but in centuries past, men of learning tried to be as multi-talented as possible. They tried to know everything there was to know in all of the sciences. Our civilization has progressed to the point where the task of understanding everything is nearly impossible. There is simply too much information, too much knowledge for one person to learn in a lifetime.

Science and Nature are just too continuous to be segregated into discrete ‘subjects’ like Chemistry, Biology, and Physics. If only it were still possible, I think that there is a wealth of cross-disciplinary knowledge just waiting to be discovered if more people played in the other neighborhood pools.