Theory of Unknowledge

For all the students I've taught anything to (in terms of anything they thought was knowledge), here is the ultimate proof of futility. David Wolpert, computer scientist and physicist, has finally come up with what we all suspected to be true: even without limits as to the nature or power of a computational device or intellect, except that it is physically a part of this universe, it will never know everything. And this extends to the laws that govern everything. So, good night to the grand unified theories and suchlike.

No, indeed you cannot know it all. But Solomon, once known as the wisest man in all the earth, was the first to think about that. It's in Ecclesiastes 3:11 that we read: "He has made everything beautiful in its time; and He has put eternity in the hearts of men, except that no one can find out what God does, from beginning to end."

These are the two sides of the gift of knowing: that we are always seeking to know, that we intuitively realise there is an infinity of knowledge; and also that we cannot know it all.

Happy Pi Day (3.14), everyone!