After reading this thread, I have to agree that this thread is ridiculous. Human beings cannot do everything by themselves. They just can't. This is why we work together to accomplish things. This is why people specialize and why we have theorists and experimentalists, why we have chemists and physicists, and why we have surgeons and primary care physicians. In order to accomplish the most, we HAVE to work together.
The plan you have talked about, pivoxa15, is ridiculous for the following reasons;
1. You cannot hope to learn everything in physics, even if you don't specialize, there is way too much to learn even to become mediocre in everything. 2. You would add nothing more to the state of human knowledge, since, as others mentioned, someone like this would probably not be able to solve any of the unsolved problems in science. Your plan, I do not mean to be rude, is somewhat selfish. Scientists do science for they're own interest and love for the subjects, but also to increase the knowledge of our species. The person who follows your plan would not be a scientist in this regard since he is only doing it for his own gain.
3. In order to have a career in science, you are going to need to specialize in something. Even in order to teach at a small liberal arts college, you would probably have to get a Master's degree if not a PhD, which imply specializing in some specific field.
4. You can still specialize and have a career in a specific field, fulfilling the requirements of #2 and #3 above and continue to learn other fields in your spare time. Sure, you won't be able to learn everything about physics this way, but you won't be able to do that anyway, as already mentioned in #1.
