Fields of Knowledge

Notes

This zoomable map of the fields of human knowledge shows the breadth and depth of what we know

Click on any of the broad fields of human knowledge to zoom in on fields within that field, keep clicking to zoom in on ever narrower fields, then click the button to zoom back out one level, or the button to zoom straight back out to the top level. You can also use your browser's back buttons to retrace your steps through the fields of knowledge.

I've often wondered whether it might be possible to lay out the entirety of human knowledge on a zoomable map. The basic classification of fields adopted above shows not only the enormity of the task, but also the arbitrariness of any simple arrangement of what we know.

Systems of classification have always fascinated me and appalled me in equal measure. By classifying a discipline under the sciences or the humanities, we constrain it; by insisting that all our knowledge be in one field or another, we forbid ourselves to explore the fertile realms in between.

This particular classification is based on Wikipedia's List of academic disciplines and sub-disciplines. Moreover, the size of a field on the map is related to the length of the Wikipedia article related to that field (click the button to show the Wikipedia article for the field shown).

Of course, Wikipedia article length is an unreliable proxy for importance, and the strange preoccupations of Wikipedia contributors are sometimes in evidence (are the sciences really so much more important than the humanities? is sex education really more important than elementary education and higher education?) And the classification itself, in particular the inclusion of some esoteric fields and the exclusion of others, is, like everything else on Wikipedia, debatable and furiously debated.

Still, for all its arbitrariness, this map hints tantalisingly at the breadth and depth of what we know.