  We use a simple physics-inspired model to get an idea about how to enhance
the speed with which a society becomes educated if we strategically place our
knowledge spreading centers (teachers or educational institutions). We study
knowledge spreading using the Ising model, a well-studied model used in
physics, specifically statistical mechanics, to describe the phenomenon of
ferromagnetism. In the social context, up and down spins are mapped to
knowledgeable and ignorant individuals. We introduce some knowledgeable
individuals into an otherwise ignorant society and see how their number
increases with time, when evolved using the Metropolis algorithm. We find that
the knowledge of the society grows faster when the initial group of
knowledgeable individuals is maximally spread out. We quantify this effect
using the doubling time and look at the distribution of the doubling time as a
function of "temperature". In the social context, the energy is identified as
the (lack of) happiness of neighbours and temperature is a parameter that
quantifies how important happiness is in the society. We point out several
limitations of this study in order to facilitate future research.
