Does Human Knowledge Double Every 5 Years?

Sobering News

The post below from yesterday, which details the stately, rather than exponential, increase in granted patents in the U.S., has really got me thinking, and I think we'd better report on the state of play here.

Let's detail those areas where we have seen adequate growth to double human knowledge every 5 years:

Update: We have since found other areas where the CAGR is sufficient to double human knowledge every five years:

Update 2: A modest review revealed errors in my calculations regarding oncology. Its position has changed (and not for the better).

Prions, where academic journal publications have increased at a CAGR of 25.57%, and patents have increased by 33.76%

Software, where academic journal publications have increased at a CAGR of 22.83% and patents have increased by 33.53%

Post-graduate enrollment in China, which has increased at a CAGR of 22.38% (although see below for more discouraging information about the growth of tertiary education worldwide)

(All percentages are CAGR (compound annual growth rate.)

1. Nanotechnology, with a blistering growth in publications of 97.16% per year. Patents, 76.15%.

2. Global Warming publications, with a of 16.85%

3. Total Chinese patent applications, at 25% per annum

4. Chinese computing patents, 58.29%

5. Chinese telecommunications patents, 30.26%

(was oncology)

7. Epidemiology patents, 22.76%

So far, that's it.

Now let's look at where we did not find anything like doubling every five years (remembering that we need a CAGR of 14.87% to double in five years time):

Update: We have now found other areas where human knowledge does not appear to be growing at a rate that will double in five years time:

Worldwide university enrollment, which has a CAGR of 4.85%

Alzheimer's disease, where academic publications have a CAGR of 9.65% and patents a CAGR of 11.26%

Programming, where academic publications have a CAGR of 12.55% and patents a CAGR of 12.83%

Chinese university enrollment, with a CAGR of 9.76%

1. U.S. patents granted, 5.21%

2. Epidemiology publications, 8.85%

3. Shale oil extraction, publications 5.59%, patents, 2.61%

4. Publications on Mars, 5.78% (see also here and here)

5. U.S. Book publishing, 5.14%

6. Indian university enrolment since 1947, 5.51%

7. Climate Models, 12.66% (Very close to 5-year doubling rate of 14.87%)

8. Improvements in Climate Models, 13.76% (Also very close)

9. Growth in publication of scientific and technical papers, 1995-1999

             OECD 0.1%

             U.S., -1.8%

             Canada, -2.2%

             UK, -0.1%

             Netherlands, -0.5%

10. Publications in astrophysics, 4% (since 1970)

11. Growth in percentage of cancer patients surviving 5 years after diagnosis, 0.7% (1960-2005)

12. Drop in percentage of soldiers dying from wounds received in battle, 1.54% (1941-2006)

13. Projected growth in number of scientists (U.S.), next ten years, 7.18%

14. Patent filings in India, last five years, 8.45%

15. Increase in patent filings, World International Patent Office, 1 year, 6.4%

6. Oncology pubications, 9.23% (revised)

Considering I cherry picked areas that I thought would be most likely to show robust growth, this is scary.

          

The Pot of (Black) Gold

Oil Shale Extraction could bring access to 1 trillion barrels of oil in the United States. Canada has even more. If some biblical figure could strike his staff against the stone and bring forth oil, he (or she) would be a very rich biblical figure, indeed.

But it's a bit tougher than that. An interesting article about the state of oil today notes that "companies developing tar sand production in Alberta announced that their costs of production were rising substantially."

Sounds like a job for science and technology... especially as biblical figures are a bit short on the ground these days. With rumors of oil production about to decline and continued resistance to nuclear power, someone who can bring this large scale energy source to our gas tanks will be heavily rewarded.

So what is happening in this subsector of a subsector? There are academic institutions that focus on engineering and others that focus on energy. There are patents to be filed, alliances to be made, deals to be done and advances to be discovered. Again, like nanotechnology and global warming, this is one area where we should expect to find a doubling of human knowledge every five years--at least.

Better yet, from our point of view, we've been extracting oil from shale since 1847 (those canny Scots at it again), so there should be a time series of publications for us to study--almost as long as our study of studying Mars.

We did find one, at Scirus again. It goes back to 1920, but only gives results for the decade up til 1950.

Taking an average of 4 journal articles for 1920 and 115 patents for the same year, we get CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 5.59% for journal articles, and 2.61% for patents. As shown below, you can easily tell when oil prices rose.

But comparing 2002-2006 with the five years preceding, we can quite clearly see the effects of commerce on knowledge seeking. Journal articles during this period rose by 13.94% for the entire 5-year period. But patents--they rose by 99.19%, doubling within 5 years.

We see similar effects when measuring output in the 70's. Journal articles grew more strongly--at 245.86% for the five year periods. Patents grew strongly, but only rose from 1,098 to 1,730 or 57.56%. In fact, it makes me wonder if the oil shocks of the 70's drove academic interest immediately, which led to a knowledge base being available for patent seekers when prices rose again after 2001.

The story of oil shale and human knowledge looks much more like punctuated equilibrium than the steady advance of human knowledge, and what punctures the equilibrium is economics.

Results below...

It Should Be Lumpy, Right?

We wouldn't expect a uniform doubling of human knowledge within a 5-year timeframe, right? Even if this is a law as inexorable as Moore's (and that doesn't seem as inexorable as it once was, or am I reading the Dell ads wrong?), one would reasonably expect that human knowledge would advance a little in some areas and a lot in others. You with me?

Given what the world's attention has been focused on since 2002, here are some of the areas where I think human knowledge should have increased fastest:

• Epidemiology, thanks to SARS and Avian flu
• Biofuels
• Vaccines
• Proteome
• Oil extraction from rock and shale
• Mars
• Genetically Modified Organisms
• Fishery management
• Global warming
• Solar activity
• The Long Tail
• Stem cell cultivation
• Infectious diseases

I will treat this as a proxy list of subject areas to explore. I'm going to be digging around to see if we've seen dramatic advances in any or all of these. I'll probably dedicate a few posts to each of them. Got any suggestions?