The Half-Life of Facts (36 page)

cumulative knowledge and, 56–57

economics of, 53

end of, 54–55

information transformation and, 43–44, 46

limits of, 203–4

logistic curves and, 44–46, 50, 203–4

and magnetic properties of iron, 50

Moore’s Law and, 41–43, 46, 48, 51, 56

population growth and, 57–61

science and, 48–49

telephone, 104

telephone game, 87

Tessner, Peter, 187

texts, old, 87–91, 114–16

theory-induced blindness, 177

TheoryMine, 19, 113

thermal conductivity of the elements, 33–35

thermodynamics, 49

Think Twice
(Mauboussin), 84

Tjio, Joe Hin, 1–2

Today,
41

Tomonaga, Sin-Itiro, 104

travel and communication, 61–64

trees, 142

Twitter, 103

UpToDate, 198

uranium, 2–3

Uranus, 154, 155

verbs, 189

Viagra, 112

voice onset time, 190

Voyager, 155

Wagner, Walter, 159

Wallace, Alfred Russel, 105

Wallace, George, 66

war, 165

War of 1812, 70

Watts, Duncan, 188

Waugh, Andrew Scott, 140–41

weather, 124

Web, 40–41

What Technology Wants
(Kelly), 46

“Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” (Ioannides), 158–59

Wiesenfeld, Kurt, 137–38

Wikipedia, 84

Wiles, Andrew, 132

Wilkins, John, 143–44

Winfrey, Oprah, 190

Worldometers, 195–96

Wray, Bradley, 175

Wren, Christopher, 143–44

Wright, Thomas, 121–22

xkcd,
84

Yensen, Trygve Dewey, 50

Yule, Udny, 103

Zaslavsky, Alan, 69

Zeno’s Paradoxes, 29–30

Ziman, John, 164

Zimmer, Carl, 161–62

Zuckerman, Harriet, 18