The Bookworms' Burrow
Richard Hamming in his book The Art of Doing Science and Engineering talks about the problem of the speed of obsolescence of old knowledge:
It is claimed by many the half-life of the technical knowledge you just learned in school is about 15 years—in 15 years half of it will be obsolete (either we will have gone in other directions or will have replaced it with new material). For example, having taught myself a bit about vacuum tubes (because at Bell Telephone Laboratories they were at that time obviously important) I soon found myself helping, in the form of computing, the development of transistors—which obsoleted my just-learned knowledge!
you must concentrate on fundamentals, at least what you think at the time are fundamentals, and also develop the ability to learn new fields of knowledge when they arise so you will not be left behind, as so many good engineers are in the long run.
How are you to recognise “fundamentals”? One test is they have lasted a long time. Another test is from the fundamentals all the rest of the field can be derived by using the standard methods in the field.
