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“They say historians peak in their 50s, once they’ve accumulated enough knowledge and wisdom to know what to look for,” says Mr. Rogoff. “By contrast, economist
by albertcardona 16y ago
“They say historians peak in their 50s, once they’ve accumulated enough knowledge and wisdom to know what to look for,” says Mr. Rogoff. “By contrast, economists seem to peak much earlier. It’s hard to find an important paper written by an economist after 40.”
Anybody has pointers to where this data comes from? What about other professions?
- jallmann 16y agoMathematics. See the Fields Medal.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- kasterma 16y agoI belief the Fields Medal is not only given to people below 40 b/c there are no older people deserving; I belief it is given to younger people b/c they can most benefit from getting such recognition.
- sesqu 16y agoThe Fields Medal is awarded every four years on the occasion of the International Congress of Mathematicians to recognize outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement. A candidate's 40th birthday must not occur before January 1st of the year of the Congress at which the Fields Medals are awarded.
- lkozma 16y agoWell, Hardy said that mathematicians peak in their twenties or something like that (I can't find the exact quote), but there have been exceptions like Weierstrass for ex.
- archgoon 16y agoAnd Euler (e^pi+1=0 discovered when he was 43). And Hilbert (published the axioms of geometry when he was 37 and formulated the Hilbert Problems) And Newton (34 when published Principia). Grigori Perelman (40). Andrew Wiles (41 when proving fermat's last theorem). Michael Garey was in his 30's and Richard Karp was in his 40's when they published their papers on NP Completeness. Paul Erdős published continuosly throught his life (died at 86). Emmy Noether developed Noether's theorem when she was about thirty, and developed Ideal Theory when she was in her 40's. Hardy's statement was not researched, or scientific. It'd be interesting to actually take papers, take the age of the authors, weight by citation rate, and give a better number of when mathematicians 'peak'.
- mleonhard 16y agoThere's some data in "Why productivity fades with age: The crime–genius connection" by Satoshi Kanazawa: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/pdfs/JRP2003.pdf http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/pdfs/JRP2003.pdf