The Half-Life of Facts (35 page)

deuterium, 151

Devezas, Tessaleno, 207–8

DEVONthink, 118–19

Diabetes Care,
67

dialect, situation-based, 190

Diamond, Arthur, 187

Dictionary of Theories
(Bothamley, ed.), 85

dinosaurs, 3, 79–82, 168–69, 194

discovery:

long tail of, 38

multiple independent, 104–5

pace of, 9–25

discriminating power, 159–60

diseases, 52, 176–77

categorization of, 205

spread of, 62, 64

Dittmar, Jeremiah, 71, 73

Dixon, William Macneile, 8

DNA, 88, 90, 122, 163

drugs, 24, 111–12

repurposing of, 112

streptokinase, 108–9

Dunbar, Robin, 205

Dunbar’s Number, 205–6

Earth, curvature of, 35–36

education, 182–83, 195

Einstein, Albert, 36, 106, 186

Electronics,
42

Ellsworth, Henry, 54

e-mail, 41

Empedocles, 201

Encyclopaedia of Scientific Units, Weights, and Measures: Their SI Equivalences and Origins
(Cardarelli), 146

EndNote, 117–18

energy, 55, 204

Eos,
148

Erdo˝s, Paul, 104

errors, 78–95

contrary to popular belief
phrase and, 84–85

Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism, An
(Green), 106

eurekometrics, 21, 22

Eureqa, 113–14

Everest, George, 140

evolution, 79, 187

evolutionary programming, 113

evolutionary psychology, 175

expertise, long tail of, 96, 102

experts, 96–97

exponential growth, 10–14, 44–45, 46–47, 54–55, 57, 59, 130, 204

extinct species, 26, 27–28

facts,
see
knowledge and facts

factual inertia, 175, 179–83, 188, 190, 199

Fallows, James, 86

Fermat, Pierre de, 132

Feynman, Richard, 104

fish, 201

fishing, 173

fish oil, 99, 110

Florey, Lord, 163

Flory, Paul, 104

Foldit, 20

Franzen, Jonathan, 208–9

French Canadians, 193–94

frogs:

boiling of, 86, 171

vision of, 171

Galaxy Zoo, 20

Galileo, 21, 143–44

Galton, Francis, 165–68

games, 51

generational knowledge, 183–85, 199

genetics, 87–90

genome sequencing, 48, 51

Gibrat’s Law, 103

Goddard, Robert H., 174

Godwin’s law, 105

Goldbach’s Conjecture, 112–13

Goodman, Steven, 107–8

Gould, Stephen Jay, 82

grammar:

descriptive, 188–89

prescriptive, 188–89, 194

Granovetter, Mark, 76–78

Graves’ disease, 111

Great Vowel Shift, 191–93

Green, George, 105–6

growth:

exponential, 10–14, 44–45, 46–47, 54–55, 57, 59, 130, 204

hyperbolic, 59

linear, 10, 11

Gumbel, Bryant, 41

Gutenberg, Johannes, 71–73, 78, 95

Hamblin, Terry, 83

Harrison, John, 102

Hawthorne effect, 55–56

helium, 104

Helmann, John, 162

Henrich, Joseph, 58

hepatitis, 28–30

hidden knowledge, 96–120

h-index, 17

Hirsch, Jorge, 17

History of the Modern Fact, A
(Poovey), 200

Holmes, Sherlock, 206

homeoteleuton, 89

Hooke, Robert, 21, 94

Hull, David, 187–88

human anatomy, 23

human computation, 20

hydrogen, 151

hyperbolic growth rate, 59

idiolect, 190

impact factors, 16–17

inattentional blindness (change blindness), 177–79

India, 140–41

informational index funds, 197

information transformation, 43–44, 46

InnoCentive, 96–98, 101, 102

innovation, 204

population size and, 135–37, 202

prizes for, 102–3

simultaneous, 104–5

integrated circuits, 42, 43, 55, 203

Intel Corporation, 42

interdisciplinary research, 68–69

International Bureau of Weights and Measures, 47

Internet, 2, 40–41, 53, 198, 208, 211

Ioannidis, John, 156–61, 162

iPhone, 123

iron:

magnetic properties of, 49–50

in spinach, 83–84

Ising, Ernst, 124, 125–26, 138

isotopes, 151

Jackson, John Hughlings, 30

Johnson, Steven, 119

Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data,
33–35

journals, 9, 12, 16–17, 32

Kahneman, Daniel, 177

Kay, Alan, 173

Kelly, Kevin, 38, 46

Kelly, Stuart, 115

Kelvin, Lord, 142–43

Kennaway, Kristian, 86

Keynes, John Maynard, 172

kidney stones, 52

kilogram, 147–48

Kiribati, 203

Kissinger, Henry, 190

Kleinberg, Jon, 92–93

knowledge and facts, 5, 54

cumulative, 56–57

erroneous, 78–95, 211–14

half-lives of, 1–8, 202

hidden, 96–120

phase transitions in, 121–39, 185

spread of, 66–95

Koh, Heebyung, 43, 45–46, 56

Kremer, Michael, 58–61

Kuhn, Thomas, 163, 186

Lambton, William, 140

land bridges, 57, 59–60

language, 188–94

French Canadians and, 193–94

grammar and, 188–89, 194

Great Vowel Shift and, 191–93

idiolect and, 190

situation-based dialect and, 190

verbs in, 189

voice onset time and, 190

Large Hadron Collider, 159

Laughlin, Gregory, 129–31

“Laws Underlying the Physics of Everyday Life Really Are Completely Understood, The” (Carroll), 36–37

Lazarus taxa, 27–28

Le Fanu, James, 23

LEGO, 184–85, 194

Lehman, Harvey, 13–14, 15

Leibniz, Gottfried, 67

Lenat, Doug, 112

Levan, Albert, 1–2

Liben-Nowell, David, 92–93

libraries, 31–32

life span, 53–54

Lincoln, Abraham, 70

linear growth, 10, 11

Linnaeus, Carl, 22, 204

Lippincott, Sara, 86

Lipson, Hod, 113

Little Science, Big Science
(Price), 13

logistic curves, 44–46, 50, 116, 130, 203–4

longitude, 102

Long Now Foundation, 195

long tails:

of discovery, 38

of expertise, 96, 102

of life, 38

of popularity, 103

Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), 98, 100–101

machine intelligence, 207

Magee, Chris, 43, 45–46, 56, 207–8

magicians, 178–79

magnetic properties of iron, 49–50

Maldives, 203

Malthus, Thomas, 59

mammal species, 22, 23, 128

extinct, 28

manuscripts, 87–91, 114–16

Marchetti, Cesare, 64

Marsh, Othniel, 80–81, 169

mathematics, 19, 51, 112–14, 124–25, 132–35

Matthew effect, 103

Mauboussin, Michael, 84

Mayor, Michel, 122

McGovern, George, 66

McIntosh, J. S., 81–82

McWhorter, John, 191

measurement, 142–70

decline effect and, 155–56, 157

kilogram in, 147–48

meter in, 143–47

of Mount Everest, 140–41

precision and accuracy in, 149–50

prefixes in, 47–48, 142, 147

publication bias and, 156

of trees, 142

Mechanical Turk, 180–82

medical knowledge, 23, 32, 51–52, 53, 122, 197, 198, 208

about cirrhosis and hepatitis, 28–30

MEDLINE, 99–100

memorization, 198

Mendel, Gregor, 106

Mendeley, 117, 118

Merton, Robert, 61, 103, 104

mesofacts, 6–7, 195, 203

meta-analysis, 107–8

cumulative, 109–10

meter, 143–47

Milgram, Stanley, 24, 167

mobile phone calls, 69, 77

Moon, 2, 126–28, 129, 138, 174, 203

Moore, Gordon, 42, 55, 56

Moore’s Law, 41–43, 46, 48, 51, 55, 56, 64, 203

Moriarty, James, 85–86

Mount Everest, 140–41

Mueller, John, 165

Munroe, Randall, 84, 153–54

Murphy, Tom, 55

mutation, 87–94

Napier’s constant, 12

National Institutes of Health, 17

natural selection, 104–5, 187

Nature,
122, 154, 156, 162, 166

negative results, 162

Neptune, 154–55, 183

network science, 74–78

neuroscience, 48

New Scientist,
85

Newton, Isaac, 21, 36, 67, 94, 174, 186

New Yorker,
86

New York Times,
20, 75, 174

Nobel laureates, 18

nosebleeds, 180–82

Noyce, Robert, 42

null hypothesis, 152

Obama, Barack, 179

Oliver, John, 159

Onnela, Jukka-Pekka, 69, 77

On the Origin of Species
(Darwin), 79, 187

opera, 14–15

orders, 60

Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe, An
(Wright), 121–22

Pacioli, Luca, 200

paleography, 87–90

paradigm, 186

paradigm shift, 186, 187

Parmentier, Antoine, 102

particle accelerator, 51

Patent Office, 54

Pauly, Daniel, 172–73

Pepys, Samuel, 52

periodic table, 50, 150–52, 182

Petroski, Henry, 49

phase transitions, 207

in acceptance and assimilation of knowledge, 185, 186

in facts, 121–39, 185

Ising model and, 124, 125–26, 138

in physics, 123–24, 126

Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society of London, 9, 12

physics, 32

Planck, Max, 186–88

planets, 6, 121–23, 128, 129–31, 132, 183–84

Planet X, 154–56, 160

Pluto, 122–23, 128, 138, 148–49, 155, 183–84

polio, 52

Pony Express, 70

Poovey, Mary, 200

Popeye the Sailor, 83, 213

population:

innovation and, 135–37, 202

makeup of, 61

size of, 2, 6, 57–61, 122, 135–37, 204

Portugal, 207

posterior probability, 159

potatoes, 102

preferential attachment, 103

prefixes, 47–48, 142, 147

Price, Derek J. de Solla, 9, 12–13, 15, 17, 32, 47, 50, 103, 166–67

prices, 196–97

printing press, 70–74, 78, 115

prior probability, 159

Pritchett, Lant, 186

Prize4Life Foundation, 97–98

productivity, 55–56

programmed cell death, 111, 194

proteomics, 48

Proteus phenomenon, 161

publication bias, 156

p-values, 152–54, 156, 158

P versus NP, 133–35

“Quantitative Measures of the Development of Science” (Price), 12

Quebec, 193–94

Queloz, Didier, 122

radioactivity, 2–3, 29, 33

Raynaud’s syndrome, 99, 110

reading, 197–98

Real Time Statistics Project, 195

reinventions, 104–5

Rendezvous with Rama
(Clarke), 19

Rényi, Alfréd, 104

replication, 161–62

Riggs, Elmer, 81

Robinson, Karen, 107–8

robots, 46

Royal Society, 94–95

Roychowdhury, Vwani, 91, 103–4

Russell, C. T., 148–49, 155

Sagan, Carl, 121–22, 129

sand, 137–38

Sandström, Ivar, 23

Schmidt, Mike, 113

Schulz, Kathryn, 174–75, 201–2

Schwartz, David, 66

science:

citizen, 19–21

cumulative knowledge and, 56–57

end of progress in, 54–55, 204

eurekometrics and, 21, 22

human aspect of, 185, 186–87

pace of discovery in, 9–25

population growth and, 57–61

technology and, 48–49

Science,
103, 161, 198

“Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth-Century England” (Merton), 61

Science Daily,
37–38

scientific journals, 9, 12, 16–17, 32

scientific prefixes, 47–48, 142, 147

Scientific Revolution, 94, 201–2

scientists, number of, 23–24

scientometrics, 12, 15–18

S-curves (logistic curves), 44–46, 50, 116, 130, 203–4

self-serving bias, 175–76

Semmelweis, Ignaz, 176–77, 185

Shakespeare, William, 105

shifting baseline syndrome, 172–73, 183, 190, 193

sidewalk experiment, 167

Simkin, Mikhail, 91, 103–4

Simon, Herbert, 103

Simons, Daniel, 178

simultaneous innovation, 104–5

singularities, 207

six degrees of separation, 24, 74, 93, 167

slow change, 171, 172, 190, 191

Smalheiser, Neil, 100

smallpox, 52

Smith, John Maynard, 154, 156

smoking, 2, 128

Snopes.com, 84

Social Forces,
13

social networks, 74–78, 93–95, 205–6

connection strengths in, 76–78

Dunbar’s Number and, 205–6

Mendeley and, 118

social sciences, 202–3

solar system, 6, 121–22

species, 143

extinct, 26, 27–28

of mammals, 22, 23, 28, 128

of marine life, 37–39

Spaceguard Survey, 19

Spacewatch, 19

spinach, 83–84, 212–14

Sputnik, 127

stars, 121–22

statistics, 153, 154, 156

steam engine, 49

Stigler, Stephen, 104, 166

Stigler’s Law of Eponymy, 104

“Strength of Weak Ties, The” (Granovetter), 76

streptokinase, 108–9

Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The
(Kuhn), 186

subways, 173–74

Sutton, Mike, 83–84, 213

Swanson, Don, 98–100, 109–10

Switek, Brian, 183

Systemic,
129

Tai, Mary, 67, 68

Talese, Gay, 198

Tang, Chao, 137–38

Tang, Rong, 32

Tasmania, 57, 59, 60

taxonomic bias, 168

technology, 53–54, 122, 173, 184