Knowledge Transmission Decays Over Time

The ability to share tacit knowledge diminishes the longer someone has held it. In epidemic model terms: infectivity wanes.

This matches intuition. The person who just learned something can explain it vividly, they remember their confusion, the “aha” moment, the path from not-knowing to knowing. Years later, that same knowledge has become so embedded that it’s hard to articulate. The curse of expertise: you forget what it was like not to know.

The mathematical form: β(t) = β₀e^(-γt), where transmission rate decays exponentially from initial contact.

Implication for knowledge capture: there’s a window. Recent learners may be better sources than long-time experts, not because they know more, but because they can still tell it.

Related: 06-molecule—seci-framework, 06-atom—tacit-knowledge-definition, 05-atom—knowledge-epidemic-model