Matteo Cantiello edited untitled.tex  almost 9 years ago

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\end{enumerate}  The first trend is easy to understand. Let's think of the cumulative knowledge of humankind as a sphere. Scientists work at the surface "\href{http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/}{pushing the boundary}", discovery increases the volume of knowledge. As the sphere's volume grows, so does its surface area; this requires an ever increasing number of researchers to tessellate the expanding cutting-edge of science. Moreover, contrary to a few hundred years ago when the sphere of knowledge was so small that a single polymath could master large chunks of it, nowadays no human can understand the details of more than a few subtopics of research. To capture the bigger picture and understand very complex research questions, collaborative efforts combining together a number of highly specific expertises are required.  The second trend is related to our increasing ability to modify the world around us. Science and technology are the tools we use to understand and shape the environment in which we live. While this has been the case for several hundred years, we only recently reach a point where our actions, if misguided, have the potential to seriously damage the fragile environment on which all biological life on Earth depends.