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I'm reminded of how mathematicians do their best work in their 20s. Many assume this is because of brain decline in later years. I bet it's mostly to do with re

I'm reminded of how mathematicians do their best work in their 20s. Many assume this is because of brain decline in later years. I bet it's mostly to do with responsibilities and life getting in the way.

groestl 7y ago
It's probably both. At the top of the Gauss curve, you can't afford a single thing to be off.
- edanm 7y ago
  True, although I don't think most mathematicians are really at that level. I think the common perception of mathematics being a young person's game is not just based on the top-level people, but on everyone, and while all mathematicians are certainly smart (-er than average?), most are not at the "if one thing is off they won't be the next Newton" level.
BurningFrog 7y ago
Why would only mathematicians get so many life responsibilities in their late 20s, while most other profession don't? I would have guessed mathematicians were, on average, supernerds with less life responsibilities than average people.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- edanm 7y ago
  You're probably wrong about the last part (I doubt there's a statistically significant difference between mathematicians and other people in regards to life responsibilities, the big ones obviously being having children). About the first part, I don't think mathematicians specifically get so many life responsibilities - I think most people do most of their "learning" in their 20s, and most of the execution of that learning in their 30s and onwards. Research mathematicians are a bit different in that, like most academics, their serious intellectual work which pushes the frontier and gets them career credit is of the same kind of learning/intellectual work. E.g. compare to programmers- most will learn to program in their 20s, pick up a few languages/technologies, then spend a big chunk of their career with those.
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    The original assertion is that mathematicians do their best work in their 20s. Not learning. Most math discoveries we know were made by guys under 25! This makes mathematics an outlier scientific field, so if your explanation is "life responsibilities", you have to explain why mathematicians have more life responsibilities than others. So my money is on some brain development thing. Not that I have any better argument than "what else could it be?".
    - learc83 7y ago
      The actual age difference it's not all that large compared to other disciplines. > In a study of nearly 2,000 famous scientists throughout history, he found that mathematicians were the youngest when they made their first important contribution. The average age at which they accomplished something important enough to land in history books was 27.3. By contrast, biologists were 29.4 years old, physicists were 29.7, and chemists were 30.5. >mathematicians make their best research contributions (which he defined as the ones mentioned most often by historians and biographers in reference books) at what many might consider doddering old age: 38.8. That age is very similar to those he found in other sciences: 40.5 in biology, 38.2 in physics, and 38.0 in chemistry Math is also a bit unusual compared to most of other disciplines in that math dissertations are often written very quickly and you don't need months or years of studies/experiments to support a thesis. That could easily explain the 2 year gap between mathematicians and biologists noted above. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~rmclachl/overthehill.html http://www.massey.ac.nz/~rmclachl/overthehill.html
      - BurningFrog 7y ago
        Thanks so much for injecting facts into this, and changing my view a bit! My, now less certain views, were based on some article I read years ago where the peak ages for various fields were listed, and were quite further spread out. I especially remember that historians peak in their 60s! Like someone says in your article "This myth, if you wish to call it a myth, is so prevalent that it's quite probable that there's some truth to it", but I'm now far less certain and flippant about. Thanks again!
- philwelch 7y ago
  Everyone gets life responsibilities in their late 20's, but perhaps mathematicians operate closer to the peak of human ability, which makes any dropoff in performance more obvious.
hyperpallium 7y ago
Erdős didn't let responsibilities get in the way. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s
- pakitan 7y ago
  > Erdős never married and had no children
  - gerbilly 7y ago
    OP is probably thinking of Euler, who according to a contemporary often worked: "with a child on his knees, a cat on his back "
  - jgtrosh 7y ago
    Not taking responsibility is one way of not letting responsibilities get in the way
  - rat87 7y ago
    He couchsurfed his friends homes, collaborating on math papers with them.
- retiredcoder 7y ago
  Erdös also did a lot of Amphetamines and claimed Math stopped when he took a break from it.
  - philwelch 7y ago
    It probably did. Just from a perspective of idle layman speculation, Erdős probably had a self-medicated, undiagnosed form of adult ADD. He routinely used amphetamines and methylphenidate (i.e. the two most widely-prescribed ADD drugs) and when he stopped using them for a month, he was incapable of focusing long enough to do his work. From the research I've done, he managed to maintain prescriptions to his stimulants based on a "depression" diagnosis, which is also consistent (adult ADD often manifests as depression).
- 7y ago

groestl 7y ago

It's probably both. At the top of the Gauss curve, you can't afford a single thing to be off.

edanm 7y ago
True, although I don't think most mathematicians are really at that level. I think the common perception of mathematics being a young person's game is not just based on the top-level people, but on everyone, and while all mathematicians are certainly smart (-er than average?), most are not at the "if one thing is off they won't be the next Newton" level.

BurningFrog 7y ago

Why would only mathematicians get so many life responsibilities in their late 20s, while most other profession don't? I would have guessed mathematicians were, on average, supernerds with less life responsibilities than average people.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
edanm 7y ago
You're probably wrong about the last part (I doubt there's a statistically significant difference between mathematicians and other people in regards to life responsibilities, the big ones obviously being having children). About the first part, I don't think mathematicians specifically get so many life responsibilities - I think most people do most of their "learning" in their 20s, and most of the execution of that learning in their 30s and onwards. Research mathematicians are a bit different in that, like most academics, their serious intellectual work which pushes the frontier and gets them career credit is of the same kind of learning/intellectual work. E.g. compare to programmers- most will learn to program in their 20s, pick up a few languages/technologies, then spend a big chunk of their career with those.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  The original assertion is that mathematicians do their best work in their 20s. Not learning. Most math discoveries we know were made by guys under 25! This makes mathematics an outlier scientific field, so if your explanation is "life responsibilities", you have to explain why mathematicians have more life responsibilities than others. So my money is on some brain development thing. Not that I have any better argument than "what else could it be?".
  - learc83 7y ago
    The actual age difference it's not all that large compared to other disciplines. > In a study of nearly 2,000 famous scientists throughout history, he found that mathematicians were the youngest when they made their first important contribution. The average age at which they accomplished something important enough to land in history books was 27.3. By contrast, biologists were 29.4 years old, physicists were 29.7, and chemists were 30.5. >mathematicians make their best research contributions (which he defined as the ones mentioned most often by historians and biographers in reference books) at what many might consider doddering old age: 38.8. That age is very similar to those he found in other sciences: 40.5 in biology, 38.2 in physics, and 38.0 in chemistry Math is also a bit unusual compared to most of other disciplines in that math dissertations are often written very quickly and you don't need months or years of studies/experiments to support a thesis. That could easily explain the 2 year gap between mathematicians and biologists noted above. http://www.massey.ac.nz/~rmclachl/overthehill.html http://www.massey.ac.nz/~rmclachl/overthehill.html
    - BurningFrog 7y ago
      Thanks so much for injecting facts into this, and changing my view a bit! My, now less certain views, were based on some article I read years ago where the peak ages for various fields were listed, and were quite further spread out. I especially remember that historians peak in their 60s! Like someone says in your article "This myth, if you wish to call it a myth, is so prevalent that it's quite probable that there's some truth to it", but I'm now far less certain and flippant about. Thanks again!
philwelch 7y ago
Everyone gets life responsibilities in their late 20's, but perhaps mathematicians operate closer to the peak of human ability, which makes any dropoff in performance more obvious.

hyperpallium 7y ago

Erdős didn't let responsibilities get in the way. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s

pakitan 7y ago
> Erdős never married and had no children
- gerbilly 7y ago
  OP is probably thinking of Euler, who according to a contemporary often worked: "with a child on his knees, a cat on his back "
- jgtrosh 7y ago
  Not taking responsibility is one way of not letting responsibilities get in the way
- rat87 7y ago
  He couchsurfed his friends homes, collaborating on math papers with them.
retiredcoder 7y ago
Erdös also did a lot of Amphetamines and claimed Math stopped when he took a break from it.
- philwelch 7y ago
  It probably did. Just from a perspective of idle layman speculation, Erdős probably had a self-medicated, undiagnosed form of adult ADD. He routinely used amphetamines and methylphenidate (i.e. the two most widely-prescribed ADD drugs) and when he stopped using them for a month, he was incapable of focusing long enough to do his work. From the research I've done, he managed to maintain prescriptions to his stimulants based on a "depression" diagnosis, which is also consistent (adult ADD often manifests as depression).
7y ago