A great deal of work has been done on Information Half Life Theory, and what has been learned is fascinating. As with all theories, it needs to be properly utilized in context in order to be effective. Outside of that, it will lead to grossly erroeous conclusions. The biggest misuse of Information Half Life is to what it's applied, and how it's applied. The most common mistake is to paint with too broad a brush.
Let's look at the following two quotes from Glenn9999 's post.
[li]Basic point is that different degrees have varying "information half-lives"[/li]
[li]The logical tools don't change with different languages or vendor tools.[/li]
Do you see the inherent contradiction of these two sentences with respect to general Information Half-Life Theory? If the logical tools, i.e. the basic fundamentals, don't change, then they don't become obsolete, which is in direct contradiction with the concept of information half-life obsolesence.
That is but one example of what has been discovered by information half life researchers - that the nature of the information, and not the discipline, is a key factor in determining half-life of that piece of information. The information half-life of the basic fundamentals has a very different, and in fact much longer, than the half-life of current research findings. As another case in point, consider the information half-life of such things as Kepler's laws of motion or Bernoulli's principle. Do we need to discuss the information half-life of mathematics?
Information half-life is a legitimate theory, but again, unless it is applied properly and in context with sufficient granularity, it can lead to grossly inaccurate assumptions.
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