The More You Know

I had a math teacher in middle school that would read to us every Friday, and he would read a list of interesting facts that his friend would email him. When he’d finish reading, he’d have this little thing that he’d do. I can only assume that our teacher was under impression that Reading Rainbow’s classic “the more you know” tagline was some kind of song that nobody knew the words to. So when he’d finish his list of facts, he’d do a little jig and sing an improvised tune: “the more you know, the less you don’t…”, or something along those lines.

Being 11 at the time (and admittedly immature for my age) I dismissed this wisdom as the ranting of some old fool trying desperately to teach us something interesting, even if it wasn’t math. Years later I smartened up and realized along the way the important of knowing something. Then it occurred that I was taught the names of birds, and why police are called cops, and innumerable riddles. And most importantly I realized that I knew absolutely nothing about the point that he was trying to make.

            Around that time I started to pursue scientific endeavors and people would say to me “Christ, you’re a physics major? Why’d you do that to yourself?” and my answer was very simple. I told them that I was looking to find out more about the world. To me it’s very exciting to pursue questions to unlock the mysteries of nature. To me, it’s far more interesting to live a life looking for answers than to accept certain falsities, there’s a joy that comes in finding things out. And to others, it may be exciting to ponder why we’re here, or how we got here, etcetera. But what my teacher taught me is that any knowledge, no matter how useful without any interest in it is meaningless.

            A while ago, my friend talked me into doing a blog where I’d talk about interesting things. And I’ll diversify the subject of these things so that you will hopefully come across something that you think is meaningful. So without any further gilding the lily, and with no more adieus, I present to you, the general knowledge blog that is: The More You Know.