Whether we’re considering global trade, new technologies or scientific research, everything seems to become more complex over time. In the past, polymaths became well versed in various disciplines and made important contributions to each. But today it is far more difficult for a person to excel in multiple domains, in part because of greater specialization.

This is not an “everything used to be better” rant. It’s just a sober observation: the world used to be simpler. And that is true from a mathematical point of view. Physicist and philosopher Ludwig Boltzmann recognized it back in 1872.

Boltzmann studied the behavior of gases and liquids, among other things. Just decades earlier, it had been proposed that everything in the world was made up of tiny building blocks—specifically, atoms

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