[NathanielZhu]

The scientific body of knowledge is increasing exponentially. I think there will be a time in which scientific progress will require a person to learn more than the time we have to live.

The problem that bugs me is this:
After finishing a chemistry major, how much of the total body of chemistry do we actually learn?
Is it closer to .01%, 1% or like 10%.
I'd just like to know a ball park range
I know it's impossible to know for sure since a lot of papers are being published and it's impossible to keep up to date with everything, but I just need an estimate.

It'll help me plan out what I want to study.
Thanks!

[Jorriss]

There's absolutely no way to even quantify what .1% of chemistry would even mean.

If you memorize the names of all the atoms, have you learned any chemistry? If you memorize the colors of solutions, is that chemistry?

When you leave a bachelors, if you got the most out of it, you've learned a lot of chemical principles but it's not feasible to give a number as to what portion of chemistry.

[Vidya]

As you know that mathematics is based on simple basics and you keep building on it to increase your knowledge.Like addition-subtraction then multiplication division and so on.Exactly in chemistry after doing major you have built a strong base for adding more knowledge on it.

[fledarmus]

The "scientific" body of knowledge is just like any other active body of knowledge. They are all growing, and nobody can possibly claim to know everything there is to know about any one of them. You can't read every piece of literature written in any one language and know everything there is to know about it, you can't study every musical composition, you can't study every prehistoric fossil ever collected, and you can't learn every organic reaction.

What you can do is learn some general principles that will allow you to understand the basics underlying the field of study, practice some techniques that are repetitive and generally useful in applications of that field, and if you are so inclined, learn the basics of research which will eventually allow you to contribute to the growth and development of the field. Then you get out of college and begin applying what you have learned, and focus on either getting very good at applying a very small slice of the field, or in pushing the boundaries of knowledge in the field in very specific directions.