ideas The Half-Life of Facts, Revisited Half of what you know will be wrong in a decade. The trick is knowing which half to hold loosely. H Helen Chao January 25, 2026 · 5 min read · The Half-Life of Facts, Revisited. Photo: Abdürrahim Hilmi Bey / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain) Longform's reader requires JavaScript. The full text of this story is available through our content service.