Made Of
Everything is made of something.How we build the map, and how we know.
Every link on Made Of carries evidence, a confidence level and sources. This page explains how we research, grade and simplify what the map says.
How a link gets on the map
- Research. Each candidate link starts from real published sources. The current pass was researched with the help of Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, which pulls from and cites real material.
- Evidence summary. Each link gets a short summary of what supports it and, where relevant, what argues against it.
- Confidence level. Every link is tagged established, strong, debated or hypothesis so you can tell settled science from open questions.
- Review. The current evidence has not yet been reviewed by subject experts. We’re opening a report-a-mistake flow before launch.
Confidence levels
- Established. Textbook consensus. Very unlikely to change.
- Strong. Well supported, though details are still argued.
- Debated. Serious competing explanations exist. We show each idea side by side.
- Hypothesis. Plausible, but the evidence is thin. Treated as such on the map and in the Daily link puzzle.
What we simplify
Any map leaves things out. The biggest simplifications are the same ones on the About page: a small cast of items standing in for many; the tree of life as a single line; materials generalised (“steel” for hundreds of grades); dates as first appearances, often approximate.
Sources
Each link’s evidence drawer lists its sources with titles, authors, year and a link where one exists. Full source metadata lives in the database and will be exposed through a public API and an open data export before launch.
Spotted a mistake?
A report-a-mistake flow is coming before launch, along with contact details for teachers, parents and sponsors. Until then, hold on to notes — we’ll ask for them.