Posted by tpc at August 26th, 2006

In theory, you could just become an expert, but in any sufficiently technical field there will be results that “everyone knows” but won’t be published anywhere, so unless you are part of “everyone”, it will be difficult for you to fill in the gaps without a great deal of rediscovery.

Quoting Walt from Ars Mathematica.

How true.

Interestingly, the post is about an article in the New Yorker about the controversy surrounding the Poincare conjecture and Perelman’s rejection of the Field’s Medal. Well worth a read.