Every idea in the Atlas, laid out by meaning.

Near means alike.

Each point is one conceptual framework in the Atlas, such as Newtonian Mechanics, Stoicism or Game Theory. We describe each by its name in the context of its subfield, with its key concepts and an excerpt of its article where the Atlas has them, and turn that description into an embedding: a list of 1,536 numbers that captures what the words are about (text-embedding-3-small). We leave out each framework’s discipline and category, so fields are not drawn apart by their labels alone.

UMAP then lays the embeddings out on a plane, keeping frameworks of similar meaning near each other as well as two dimensions allow (section 08 measures how well). Regions and neighbourhoods are meaningful; the axes are not, and the distance between two far-apart regions is only a rough guide. Colour shows seven families of categories, and every category is named on the map. The faint lands are their territories: where each category is the most common kind of idea, its name at its densest place. All the numbers below are measured in the full embedding, not on the flattened map.

Ideas have dates.

Play the history on the map: each framework appears when its period of peak influence begins on its subfield’s timeline, glows while that period lasts and then settles into the canon. The dates are the Atlas’s own chronology, written with the help of AI and mostly marked as broad, so read them as eras rather than exact years.

Knowledge is young. 77% of the Atlas’s frameworks begin after 1900, and half of them after 1963. The oldest:

• Prehistoric and Ancient Near Eastern Art · 40,000 BCE Arts & Architecture
• Carving · 30,000 BCE Arts & Architecture
• Rock Art · 30,000 BCE Arts & Architecture
• Aboriginal Australian Painting · 20,000 BCE Arts & Architecture
• Traditional ceramic craft tradition · 20,000 BCE Natural Sciences

When each field formed

The year a quarter of each category’s frameworks had appeared, on the slider’s scale of eras.

1. Religions690
2. Mythology, Folklore & Esotericism1230
3. Philosophy1690
4. Arts & Architecture1837
5. Law1868
6. Veterinary, Agricultural & Food Sciences1900
7. Natural Sciences1912
8. Mathematics1920
9. Games1920
10. History1929
11. Medicine & Health1933
12. Engineering1934
13. Humanities1944
14. Social Sciences1945
15. Sports & Human Performance1950
16. Business, Management & Finance1950
17. Economics1950
18. Computer Science1974
19. PrehistoryAncient worldClassical antiquityMiddle AgesRenaissanceEnlightenment and industryModern era

When fields met

Two fields meet when a framework of one has at least 5 of its 15 closest ideas in the other (and at least 3 such frameworks join them). 85 pairs of fields have met; the first:

1. c. 20,000 BCE · Traditional ceramic craft tradition Natural Sciences ⟷ and Arts & Architecture
2. c. 7,000 BCE · Fermentation Craft Tradition Natural Sciences ⟷ and Veterinary, Agricultural & Food Sciences
3. c. 5,000 BCE · Craft and empirical processing traditions Engineering ⟷ and Natural Sciences
4. c. 3,500 BCE · Sign and Symbol Systems Social Sciences ⟷ and Arts & Architecture
5. c. 3,000 BCE · Empirical craft tradition Engineering ⟷ and Arts & Architecture
6. c. 1,800 BCE · Classical Numerical Procedures Computer Science ⟷ and Mathematics
7. c. 1,500 BCE · Vedic sacrificial mythology Mythology, Folklore & Esotericism ⟷ and Religions
8. c. 800 BCE · Vedāntic and Buddhist Meditative Analysis Philosophy ⟷ and Religions

Fields meet at their edges.

For 9% of frameworks, the single closest idea in the whole Atlas belongs to another category, and 14% of their 15 nearest neighbours do. Some ideas sit right on a border: at least 5 of their 15 closest relatives in their own category and as many in one other. 2,094 frameworks do; here is one for each pair of fields, the most clearly placed first.

1. Cognitive Psychology · Cognitive Neuroscience Natural Sciences ⟷ and Social Sciences
2. Quantum Computation · Quantum Information Natural Sciences ⟷ and Computer Science
3. Veterinary Public Health · One Health Veterinary, Agricultural & Food Sciences ⟷ and Medicine & Health
4. Participatory Design · Design Arts & Architecture ⟷ and Computer Science
5. Confucianism · History / Chinese Philosophy Philosophy ⟷ and Religions
6. Experimental Fluid Dynamics · Fluid Dynamics Natural Sciences ⟷ and Engineering
7. Logicism · Mathematical Logic Mathematics ⟷ and Philosophy
8. Old Institutional Economics · Institutional Economic History History ⟷ and Economics
9. Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Therapy · Clinical Psychology Social Sciences ⟷ and Medicine & Health
10. Environmental and Ecotoxicology · Toxicology Medicine & Health ⟷ and Natural Sciences
11. Doing Gender · Gender And Sexuality Social Sciences ⟷ and Humanities
12. Legal Anthropology · Law and Society Law ⟷ and Social Sciences

One idea, many homes.

527 frameworks appear under the same name in more than one category. Intersectionality is studied in 7 categories and 15 subfields, more than any other. Each field tells such an idea’s story from its own side, which is why the Atlas keeps one in every field where it belongs.

• Intersectionality · 7 categories, 15 subfieldsHistory, Humanities, Law, Medicine & Health, Philosophy, Social Sciences, Sports & Human Performance
• Environmental Justice · 6 categories, 7 subfieldsArts & Architecture, History, Medicine & Health, Natural Sciences, Philosophy, Social Sciences
• Structuralism · 5 categories, 17 subfieldsEconomics, Humanities, Mythology, Folklore & Esotericism, Philosophy, Social Sciences
• Connectionism · 5 categories, 12 subfieldsComputer Science, Humanities, Natural Sciences, Philosophy, Social Sciences
• Functionalism · 4 categories, 21 subfieldsLaw, Mythology, Folklore & Esotericism, Philosophy, Social Sciences
• Actor-Network Theory · 4 categories, 14 subfieldsBusiness, Management & Finance, History, Philosophy, Social Sciences
• New Institutional Economics · 4 categories, 9 subfieldsEconomics, History, Law, Social Sciences
• Constructivism · 4 categories, 8 subfieldsArts & Architecture, Mythology, Folklore & Esotericism, Philosophy, Social Sciences

Some disciplines look outward.

The share of each discipline’s nearest neighbours that lie in other categories (disciplines with at least 20 frameworks). The outward ones sit where two fields share their questions; the inward ones are traditions with a language of their own.

How wide is a field?

The average distance of a category’s frameworks from its own centre (cosine distance in the embedding): the larger, the more different kinds of idea the field holds. Beside each, the category whose ideas are closest to it.

1. Computer Science0.322nearest: Engineering
2. Natural Sciences0.314nearest: Engineering
3. Medicine & Health0.314nearest: Social Sciences
4. Engineering0.306nearest: Computer Science
5. Arts & Architecture0.305nearest: Humanities
6. Business, Management & Finance0.303nearest: Economics
7. Veterinary, Agricultural & Food Sciences0.301nearest: Natural Sciences
8. Social Sciences0.297nearest: Humanities
9. Religions0.293nearest: Mythology, Folklore & Esotericism
10. Sports & Human Performance0.283nearest: Social Sciences
11. Humanities0.283nearest: Social Sciences
12. Economics0.281nearest: Business, Management & Finance
13. Games0.280nearest: Computer Science
14. Mathematics0.277nearest: Computer Science
15. Mythology, Folklore & Esotericism0.274nearest: Religions
16. Philosophy0.268nearest: Social Sciences
17. Law0.258nearest: Social Sciences
18. History0.250nearest: Social Sciences

Families and categories.

Measured in meaning, drawn in two dimensions.

Every number on this page is measured in the embedding itself, where each framework is a point in 1,536 dimensions, never on the drawing. The numbers do depend on how wide a circle of neighbours counts: the wider the circle, the further it reaches into other fields.

• 5 closest9% in another category
• 10 closest11% in another category
• 15 closest (used here)14% in another category
• 25 closest19% in another category
• 50 closest26% in another category

The map itself is a flattening, and a flattening must tear somewhere. Of the 15 frameworks nearest a point on the map, on average 48% are among its 50 closest in meaning, and laying the map out again from another random start keeps 43% of them. So read a point’s surroundings as a rough guide; its list of closest ideas (pin it on the map) comes from the embedding and is exact.

When the Atlas grows, the map is redrawn starting from its last layout, new frameworks beside their closest relatives, so the places you know stay roughly where they were.

The poster.

The whole map as a still image, 6000 × 4500 pixels, for printing, slides and papers.

Drawn on 2026-11-07 from the Atlas’s 20,718 visible frameworks; it is redrawn as the Atlas grows. Embeddings describe ideas the way language does, with the gaps and leanings of the text a model learned from; frameworks the Atlas knows only by name are placed by their name and field. Read it as a portrait of the Atlas, not a ruling on how ideas relate.