The density of ideas

Here’s a simple but useful idea: Every idea, concept, or theory has a density. Some ideas have low density, meaning they are explained and understood quickly. Other ideas have high density and to grasp them might require following a long chain of logic, or review different examples.

Why some books should be tweets

According to their density, some ideas can be compressed into 140 characters. Some denser ideas justify a blog post, or an essay, and the most dense ideas may require a book, or an entire corpus of literature to be transmitted.

A problem arises when the medium that transports an idea is not aligned with its density. Forcing quantum theory into a blog post will be futile. On the other hand, expanding what should have been a tweet into a book, is equally misguided. Books that are blown-up in this way are unfortunately ubiquitous and are the reason something called “speed reading” exists.

A good example for this is Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why”. The idea behind it is powerful but not very complex. A great explanation of the idea is delivered in Sinek’s own TEDx talk in a mere 18 minutes. But then he went on to write a 250-page book, blown up with examples unnecessary to grasp the idea.

On the other hand, you can have books like Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics”.

Try speed-reading that!

Each bit of the Nicomachean ethics goes into new facets to develop an overarching idea. This is the kind of book you get when the density of an idea is in line with its representation.

The importance of ideas

Lastly, it’s worth keeping in mind that the density of ideas is not at all correlated with their importance. There are immensely important ideas that have such a low density that they can be explained in a single sentence. Take the first sentence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

Immensely important idea, but very low density. The entire declaration occupies only 8 pages.

Now, this whole concept of “Ideas have a density” is fairly simple. And consequently, I can take for granted that you will understand it from this short blog post. That’s quite fortunate, as I really don’t have the time to write a book right now.

Key points

• Ideas have a density that correlates with their complexity, not their importance
• The medium to transmit an idea should be chosen to align with its density
• Low density ideas deserve tweets and blog posts
• High density ideas deserve books and entire fields of study