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There is a word for people who like knowledge: philomath. I'd say I'm one of those who's trying to become a polymath. Yes, I must agree that a strict polymath has made contributions to multiple fields, but that's very subjective. I'm not sure what the significance cut-off is contributions. If I have a widely read blog, a startup, and I've developed my own technology, am I a polymath?

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>If I have a widely read blog, a startup, and I've developed my own technology, am I a polymath?

No.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem with the term "polymath" -- too many people seem far too keen to apply it to themselves.

I think the best strategy at this stage in history is the "know everything about something and something about everything" strategy. Aside from making life more interesting, the more you know about fields outside your own specialty the more likely you are to have great ideas in your own field, since most "new ideas" in a field are really just of the form "hey, why don't we try this approach which they use in another field on this field?"

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