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As researchers age, they produce less disruptive work
- tpoacher 6mo agoBut they get more grants. So maybe this tells you more about the funders and their vision than it does about the researchers and their vision?
- Animats 6mo agoEinstein spent his later career trying to reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics. He failed. So has everyone after him. It's not about Einstein being old. It's that it's a really hard problem.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoNot a physicist, so this may be a dumb question… but do we even know for sure it’s a problem with a solution?
- ktallett 6mo agoSo we do know that all the tiny interactions like charge of particles etc must work side by side with all the big interactions like gravity as otherwise how would anything as we know it work. However it could as easily be neither are the right way to interpret the world and there is something we are missing, or we are right and we can find a method to combine the theory of the big and the small interactions but we are missing a section. At the end of the day we can't interact in any meaningful way with more than half the matter in the universe (it's proven to exist due to a gravitational pull), so it's clear we can't experience a lot of the universe and we definitely can't explain a lot. So yes there is a solution, but do we, as humans, have the ability to come up with it, who knows. I would say it's unlikely.
- KalMann 6mo agoNot a physicist either but my understanding is that is that if you believe that we can discover all the laws of physics that explain how the world operates then it needs to have a solution. Like we have formulas describing how gravity works. We can test these formulas by observing the motion of the planets and galaxies. Is this theory true? There's lots of evidence for it so it feels like it's gotta be pretty close to "the truth" We also have formulas describing how elementary particles behave. These formulas have been tested to a very high degree of precision so it seems they've got to be close to the truth as well. But if you use both our formulas for gravitation and formulas for elementary particles you can derive a contradiction. So these two theories cannot simultaneously be true. There's got to be something wrong with them. I suppose there's the possibility that at a certain point nature simply doesn't follow any laws and you can't possibly make sense of it.
- lmm 6mo agoWell, the universe does something with extremely small but extremely heavy objects, unless you think that merely creating that situation will cause the universe to cease to exist.
- hunterpayne 6mo agoNow consider that the density of an atomic nucleus is oddly similar to the density of a black hole. And this was the path Einstein was following. Too bad you need computers to study it because of all the differential equations.
- ninkendo 6mo agoYou don’t even need that to understand the tension between QM and GR: What is the gravitational field of a particle in a superposition of two different locations? What about when the superposition collapses? Does the gravity field instantly change shape, faster than light? The consensus right now is this is so hard to measure we’ll basically never know the answer from just observations. Maybe having a gravitational influence on something at all, collapses the superposition? Maybe if you put the particles in a large enough configuration it’s impossible to maintain superposition? Maybe there’s enough background noise in our particular universe to make such a measurement permanently impossible, and we get by on a technicality? Nobody knows.
- lmm 6mo agoNot all interpretations of QM have collapses, which tend to be underdescribed even in purely QM terms.
- jampekka 6mo ago> What is the gravitational field of a particle in a superposition of two different locations? What about when the superposition collapses? Does the gravity field instantly change shape, faster than light? This is a symptom of the problem of gravity/spacetime being a handled as a classical field, not really the problem itself. The electromagnetic field for example has this exact same problem, but it's handled by the electromagnetic field being quantized. The problem is that nobody is able to fully quantize gravity.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- tim333 6mo agoWell nature follows general relativity and quantum mechanics so presumably they can co-exist. We just don't have a mathematically consistent theory as to how.
- GTP 6mo agoAccording to Sabine Hossefelder, there's no scientific basis to expect that a theory of everything exists (if I remember correctly this blog post) [1]. But I also have to say that, while I do find interesting what she talks about and I agree with her about some problems in academia she often complains about, for this very reason some other physicists don't like her and say she's wrong. But my understanding is that she still gets the Physics and Math parts right, it is her complaints about academia that some academics strongly disagree with. [1] https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2020/07/do-we-need-theory-of-everything.html https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2020/07/do-we-need-theory-...
- jampekka 6mo agoTFA also refers to just Einstein's 1905 papers. He published general relativity 10 years later. And after GE he contributed e.g. stimulated emission, Bose-Einstein statistics, Einstein-de Sitter cosmological model and the EPR paradox, among lots of other stuff. Also the claim "toward the tail end of Einstein’s life, he argued strenuously against the concepts undergirding the emerging field of quantum mechanics" downplays that Einstein was pivotal in emerging the field in the first place.
- renox 6mo agoYes and being 'opposed' to QM contributed to expose the 'spooky action at distance' that QM implies, which is very important.. It's a pity that experimentators were able to demonstrate it only a long time after Einstein's death, what would have been his reaction??
- hunterpayne 6mo ago"downplays that Einstein was pivotal in emerging the field in the first place." Indeed, its a pretty easy case to make the Einstein has more to do with QM as it currently exists than Bohr does. The major interesting work on QM after the 1960s or so is entirely dependent upon Einstein's work on QM and locality. The entire narrative in fact comes from Bohr's hissy fit after Einstein pointed out that QM is non-local and that seems very wrong.
- MathMonkeyMan 6mo agoSeeing what came later with gauge theories and more speculative stuff like loop quantum gravity, you can't blame Einstein for thinking that the theory of everything might take the form of a set of field equations for a connection. Math was just too hard, and the answer probably doesn't look like that after all.
- hunterpayne 6mo agoIt should be pointed out that the math of spinning black holes which Einstein needed to reconcile GR and QM wasn't discovered/invented until the 1980s. And we still haven't really checked to see if he was on to something. A big part of this is that the young have the energy to spread their ideas. The old often don't. That has as much to do with these things as being right or "on to something".
- the__alchemist 6mo agoThis is my understanding as well. What the article described has been cannon for almost a century, but it may not be an accurate representation, and we still don't have the answers to address Einsteins' concerns. (Article quote in question: "But toward the tail end of Einstein’s life, he argued strenuously against the concepts undergirding the emerging field of quantum mechanics, the ideas that are shaking up physics yet again and may lay bare even more of our universe’s mysteries.")
- kulahan 6mo agoAuthor must not have heard of Nobel Disease - many laureates go on to propose absolutely batshit insane theories. Sounds disruptive to me…
- ceejayoz 6mo agoThey’re usually outside their field of expertise, though. It’s like being a billionaire; you stop getting “no, that’s stupid” feedback and it rots your brain.
- paleotrope 6mo agoWhen brilliance in one area doesn't translate to another.
- toast0 6mo agoThis happens in lots of different fields. I feel like people need to start developing pseudonyms when they achieve success, so that they still get feedback. Either that, or they have to carefully cultivate a group of no people to hang around and tell them which ideas are stupid.
- aidenn0 6mo agoStephen King tried this (as Richard Bachman), but he was found out after just 4 books. His last novel as Bachman sold 10x as many copies after the connection was made known.
- nephihaha 6mo agoIronically the article claims scientists become less radical as they get older. I suppose it depends what you consider radical.
- Ekaros 6mo agoRadical in their area of expertise. If you have spend decades building certain mental models and then theoretical models that most likely work well(as you were rewarded for them) you are likely get stuck in following those. Does not mean you have well working models outside these. Or that those same models will work well in entirely distinct contexes.
- hackthemack 6mo agoI prefer the full quote by Douglas Adams. I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
- somewhatgoated 6mo agoIt’s pretty damn accurate in my case.
- zoogeny 6mo agoThis feels apt in more than just science/technology. It matches my experience with culture as well, e.g. music and movies.
- the__alchemist 6mo agoI feel like many younger people still listen to music from the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s etc, as an exception (?)
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- degamad 6mo agoThat's in the rule - for them it's "just a natural part of the way the world works".
- the__alchemist 6mo agoAh I misunderstood; my mistake!
- marcosdumay 6mo ago
- ktallett 6mo agoDisruptive work nowadays is not very popular with institutions and doesn't win you grants. What does win grants is plodding along on a same path usually towards some end goal that is the latest buzzword. Those who stay in academia all start aspirational and wish to change the world, but the system sucks it out of them.
- johnny22 6mo agonowadays? It's never been popular.
- readthenotes1 6mo agoI was surprised that the article did not mention that Einstein was not originally given the Nobel prize for relativity because the Old guard did not like the work...
- ktallett 6mo agoA nobel prize was very rarely given for theory, especially one that hadn't been stringently experimented on until the 50's to the -70's. The photoelectric effect definitely was more solid to give out the prize on. Saying this I think the Nobel prize is becoming less relevant, especially as nowadays one person is rarely the reason advancements are made.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- ktallett 6mo agoYes, as nowadays we have the ability to simulate or experiment theories at a great speed. A century ago it was a lot harder so scepticism made sense as you couldn't easily prove your theory. You feel we should be able to take more risks now, but if anything we take as many or fewer, therefore I fear mavericks have become even less popular.
- johnny22 6mo ago
- scarecrowbob 6mo agoI found Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" helpful on this topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Re...
- readthenotes1 6mo agoI was shocked that the article did not mention Kuhn as the source for the two paradigms. Has he been forgotten already? And of course if you haven't read that book, it's insightful and easy
- ojbyrne 6mo agoIt’s almost like a corollary to the Douglas Adam’s principle referred to in the article - if there’s a theory about social behavior formulated before you’re born, it’s fair game to reformulate it.
- scarecrowbob 6mo agoAs much as I enjoy DA, Kuhn takes it a little further- it's almost like folks live in completely different worlds because the worlds are made up of fundamentally different basic parts...
- grebc 6mo agoThey hit the nail on the head in the first paragraph. Older people have influence, power, control to direct where resources are allocated. No 25yo scientists has the werewithal or experience to challenge that until later in life. It’s kind of like asking why old people have all the assets.
- ShowalkKama 6mo agoFascinating perspective. In today’s fast-paced scientific landscape, it’s crucial to recognize that innovation is not just about ideas — it’s about access, infrastructure, and thought leadership. Einstein disrupted the status quo, but today’s emerging researchers must first navigate a robust ecosystem of grants, incentives, and legacy stakeholders before they can move the needle. Food for thought. /s
- moomin 6mo agoI desperately want to slap a huge “citation needed” on that first paragraph.
- analog31 6mo ago>>> It was the Nobel laureate and quantum physicist Max Planck who wrote that “science advances one funeral at a time” (which is actually a somewhat artful translation of his original statement, in German) about revered gatekeepers and their nostalgia for insights past that keep leaps in scientific understanding from happening. Turns out, he may have been right. Or he may have been wrong. I think it was Paul Feyerabend who showed that most paradigms (yes, including that one) of how science works are falsified by counterexamples in scientific history and practice. We love to make a discovery seem like a triumph against evil and obstruction, and sometimes it happens, but sometimes it's just a discovery. Disclosure: Old scientist.
- inglor_cz 6mo agoA sufficiently obstinate person in a position of power can block any progress in a certain direction for a long, long time. Ancel Keys is known for really hating the "sugar is problematic" theory and sinking careers of younger nutritional scientists who dared touch it for decades. Sen. Richard Shelby was a huge hater of the "orbital fuel depot" concept and it only started being developed further once he retired and didn't hold sway over the American cosmic sector anymore.
- analog31 6mo agoSure, isolated anecdotes. Shelby was a lawyer. Orbital fuel depot sounds like an engineering problem.
- YeGoblynQueenne 6mo agoYou can't teach an old scientist new tricks; because they know all the tricks.
- analog31 6mo agoOnly most of the tricks. ;-) But every few years I learn a new technique, and I'm sure we're not done coming up with more.
- ordu 6mo ago> Even the greatest minds, such as Einstein, transitioned from disruptor to gatekeeper when quantum mechanics threatened his nostalgic view of the universe Just watch Veritasium[1] take on this claim. Eistein claimed that QM in Copenhagen interpretation is non-local. Bohr claimed he proved Einstein wrong. And then came Bell and ruled out local hidden variables, proving the QM is non-local, at least in Copenhagen interpretation. Pity neither Einstein nor Bohr lived to that moment, so we can't know what they would say on that. But in any case Einstein was right all the time. [1] https://youtu.be/NIk_0AW5hFU https://youtu.be/NIk_0AW5hFU
- GTP 6mo agoDid Einstein ever say that QM is non local, and therefore it is wrong? The discussions around this topic seem to imply this, but I don't know if this happened. Also, AFAIK what Einstein really didn't like, was the idea that, at a fundamentals level, our reality isn't deterministic. This is at odds with our everyday experience, but it seems to have been confirmed by experiments. So maybe focusing on what their thoughts about locality were could be missing the forest for the tree.
- ordu 6mo agoI added the link to Veritasium. They discuss what Einstein said, his exact words. They even show books where his words were printed. Though in German ofc. Veritasium tries to uncover all the story of the myth of old demented Einstein who was unable to accept QM. And it seems to be a very unfair myth. They say "the history is written by victors" (in this case by Bohr), and I tend to agree. > Did Einstein ever say that QM is non local, and therefore it is wrong? Well, kinda, but not exactly. He said that Copenhagen interpretation of QM is non-local. Not QM itself, Veritasium cites some Einstein's letter to Bohr where Einstein explicitly accepts the math of QM, because it works, but opposes "spooky action at distance". Should we interpret it as Einstein claimed that QM is wrong? I'm not entirely sure, he hoped that if they fixed that non-locality thing of QM, they will be able to bridge QM and GR. (Probably, his previous experience of fixing non-locality of Newton's gravity led to this prediction.) You see, Einstein had one wrong presumption. He thought that if QM non-local then it would lead to contradictions. But it turned out that it doesn't lead to contradictions: a measurement and a wave-function collapse lead to non-local consequences, but they cannot be used to transfer information. So no contradictions. Despite this wrong presumption, I didn't hear Einstein saying QM is wrong, he was pretty careful about what he said, and you'll probably can't catch him on a single wrong claim. He pointed to non-locality and said "it smells". He proposed hidden variables as an alternative removing the smell. It is all. None of these claims were wrong. I believe he was seeking some thought experiment that can show contradictions, but he failed. But he had found experiments that can show non-locality without any doubt. > maybe focusing on what their thoughts about locality were could be missing the forest for the tree. I don't think so. It fits perfectly. Einstein spent ~10 years fighting gravity, mostly due to the reason of non-locality of Newton's gravity. Non-local gravity couldn't work with relativity, it leads to contradictions. Einstein fought non-locality for 10 years, and it fits perfectly that he noticed non-locality in quantum-mechanics instantly, when others didn't (it was even not because Einstein was a genius, he was just primed to non-locality and highly sensitive to it). It fits perfectly that Einstein was very concerned by it and sought ways around it. For example he proposed hidden variables as a way around it. Just think about it: his hidden variables didn't try to make quantum mechanics into a deterministic theory, values of hidden variables meant to be non-deterministic. Eistein tried to make QM local, by fixing hidden variables way before "wave-function collapse". At the same time your claim that Einstein was against non-deterministic nature of QM, doesn't fit facts, AND it fits perfectly with people not really understanding what Einstein think is wrong with QM. Bohr had written an obscurantist's answer to EPR paper, in which he claimed that he won the dispute, but I'm not sure there was at least one person who really understood how. This smog of war naturally leads to people hypothesizing and coalescing to some easily understandable hypothesis. And hypotheses of Einstein's aversion to non-determinism is an easily understandable hypothesis. So my (probabilistic) judgement is: the story told by Veritasium is highly probable. It relies on some sample set of facts. The sample can be non-representative, but the whole story fits in a way that I don't believe anyone can fit artificially, even if they tried really hard.
- black_13 6mo ago[dead]
- sublimefire 6mo agoSurely we want impact to be seen in our lives and not after our funeral. In such a case it is easier to think about huge things in the first part of the career as attainable, but later in life you might have 15 years left for which you will optimize your chosen battle to be able to see it to fruition.
- everdrive 6mo agoIt seems obvious to me that younger people are more predisposed towards building their reputation (and taking some serious risk to do so) and older people are more predisposed towards maintaining what they've built. This feels like a pretty standard evolutionary psychology approach. It's not as if no one can disrupt in their older years, but in general people get more cautious as they get older. They're less interested in offending and upsetting, and less prone to intentionally diving into the most divisive topics.
- consumer451 6mo agoI am not disagreeing, but is a possible additional factor that younger, more naive, people just don't have what is and isn't "possible" so deeply ingrained in their minds? The disruptive part of the startup ecosystem kinda runs on that, right?
- casey2 6mo agoYoung people understand that it isn't possible to win gambling, they due it anyways because of thrill seeking, which decays for multiple reasons as you get older, but has a lot to do with reputation/how established you are and your relative comfort level. This is probably why old people in highly competative fields take HRT, Dopamine Agonists, Stimulants or Psychedelics
- consumer451 6mo agoA bunch of truly naive people trying "impossible" things sounds a bit like the Infinite Monkey Theorem. However, what if they are grad students, or the best of the best product people/devs, which is what YC tries to harvest? That improves the chances of the naive finding some actual disruption, does it not?
- netrap 6mo agoInteresting analogy but there are many old people in Casinos...
- at-fates-hands 6mo ago
- Ozzie-D 6mo ago[flagged]
- amai 6mo agoIt is not about the age, it is about the time you work in a specific field. If you are newcomer to a field you simply don't know what is difficult and what is not. So you have a more open mind. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuval_Ne'eman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuval_Ne'eman This guy was a soldier for 15 years before he studied physics for 3 years and discovered SU(3) and quarks before Gell-Mann did. So switching fields opens your mind for new discoveries. If you stay very long in the same field you're mind gets just used to all the unsolved problems.
- embedding-shape 6mo agoMaybe we shouldn't extrapolate so fast though. Maybe if Ne'eman didn't spend 15 years as a paramilitary militia, he'd be studying physics 15 years sooner, and came up with even more great stuff than he did. But we wouldn't ever know, and we also don't know if the 15 years of paramilitary/military helped him or made things worse.
- sarreph 6mo agoI guess that argument can go on forever though -- how do we know if _anyone_ is doing the right thing they're "supposed" to be doing / disrupting?
- PaulHoule 6mo agoIn 2026 it is probably not theoretical physics. Around 2000 or so the dam broke and there have been numerous routes to quantum gravity which are plausible from a calculational point of view... but not a lot of experiments to rule them out except for those that are the most blatantly Lorenz violating. Until we see sparticles, proton decay, and the like, we can't say that much about the whole world of GUT and Strings that we're stuck in right now.
- embedding-shape 6mo agoExactly, much better with just "we do what we do, and the consequences are what they are" without (potentially mis-)attributing it to things like military service or whatever their past experience may be.
- jleyank 6mo agoIf researchers are like hackers, they can do their best work when they’re unaware that it’s impossible. As time progresses, what was radical can or often does become mainstream. Decades later, it’s part of the background and something that can be replaced. A lot of time is lost in maintenance and overhead. Pundits and fundraisers don’t do research.
- fn-mote 6mo agoConjecture: when they were young, they disrupted. Those same ideas later became orthodoxy. Note: the actual title of the article is "Is This Why Science Advances One Funeral at a Time?" and was on the front page recently.
- Xcelerate 6mo agoI feel like we still don’t have great research on how much of this is due to biological factors related to age and how much is due to confounding factors. I suspect that sustained creativity may be a result of continuous exposure to new experiences and concepts (which younger people are naturally situated to encounter quite often), so I try to consistently add novelty to my life as I get older, specifically targeting things way outside my comfort zone or previous interests. For example, I’ve always been sort of uneasy with flying, so I figured I would sign up for general aviation classes and learn to fly myself, which is something I never would have had the slightest inclination toward when I was younger. I ultimately didn’t go through with it, as while signing up, my wife strongly insisted that I find a different form of “novelty” to pursue, but I think it decently illustrates what I was attempting to accomplish. Some more mundane examples include listening to music that I don’t enjoy, completely mixing up how I dress after decades of wearing the same thing, reading books opposite my interests, taking classes in fields different than what my degree was in, and trying to constantly meet people who are very different from myself. I guess we’ll see if this has any effect or not.
- idiotsecant 6mo agoI'm not sure old farts doing experience tourism is recreating the conditions of youth, and I say that as a fellow old fart. It seems to me that being young and stupid has the advantage of making people hungry for success damn the consequences in a way that is more subdued as we age. This partly is a thing of biology, I think, and partly a thing of understanding consequence.
- behringer 6mo agono need to go up in a plane, just learn to fly in a flight simulator. It's not quite the same but they are very realistic.
- ontouchstart 6mo agoI couldn’t help but notice the similarities between human aging and “filling up” the context window in Agentic AI: the “chain of thoughts” getting so heavy that nothing new can be created. On the other hand, there was lot of disruptive work did survive, or we can call them “hallucinations”. Hindsight is 20/20.
- ferguess_k 6mo agoMy parent hunch is that most researchers choose to marry and have kids, and that significantly reduces his, and maybe, just maybe, that changes in hormone also makes him/her less aggressive and ambitious -- in all perspectives. I'd really love to see some researches on scientists who NEVER marry/have kids against people who married and have kids.
- alphawhisky 6mo agoYeah, but what about Dr. Doofenschmirtz? He has a teenage daughter and manages to push the envelope in multiple fields of science.
- tgv 6mo agoThere are possibilities that involves less biological determinism: the older, the more work done in collaboration. Or: researchers stay with their original subject, which often (remember: we're talking averages here) gradually becomes more main stream.
- ferguess_k 6mo agoWe can control for the same age. But anyway it is going to be difficult to design the tests. My personal experience says, unless you really like kids, you are going to suffer a lot -- yes you are also going to have some fun, but you are definitely going to suffer a lot.
- RandomWorker 6mo agoClassic explore versus exploit. When I was a young researcher I was given a lot of impossible opportunities. Tried 10 and did two pieces of disruptive work. That work has accrued hundreds of citations and whole research groups have received millions to continue to work on it. I didn’t see any meaningful money from that work. Now, I have a family and my research is based on requests that have deliverables and pay the bills. My skills in fact finding, synthesizing, and presenting the work is 1,000,000x better. But the risks are 10x less in this work and the pay is 100,000x more.
- xyz100 6mo agoAlternatively, you win the highest prize in your field and the only path you see forward is solving the most impossible problem in the field, which of course you will fail to do.
- bradley13 6mo agoAs others have mentioned: being fresh to a field, you are more likely to bring fresh insights. Once you are established, you create your own mental ruts. Perhaps more important is simple mental capability. This peaks around the age 25-35. I look back at some of the research I did around age 30, and - wow. Now, at age 60+, there is absolutely no chance that I could duplicate that level of sheer concentration and achievement.
- lucalouren 6mo ago[dead]
- yaptrap13 6mo agoI'm old. Turning 60 this year.Not a programmer,spent my life building things like houses and decks,a few boats. Some medical issues last year forced me to slow down which is how I started working with AI.Still not a programmer but AI does let me do some things,also takes me down wrong turns and sidetracks more than not.To the point of this post, I fully intend to create disruptive work.Why? Because the world is a fkn mess and I have kids and someday grandkids and greatgrandkids who I'll never meet.I also have a lifetime of knowledge and skills,now I can have an idea that can turn into code on github and grow into something bigger.So am I an old naively optomistic dude with little to no clue what I'm doing and don't really give a f? Absolutely. FNA
- egberts1 6mo agoBalderdash!!!
- tsoukase 6mo agoThe authors reaffirm an expected result, they didn't find anything disruptive (pun intended). With age imagination leaves and experience arrives. The former advances science, the latter doesn't.
- aidenn0 6mo agoGiven that (at least to my understanding) forced retirement at a given age is illegal in the US, could we maybe put a duration on tenure to try and increase the number of "up and coming" people in research?
- Qem 6mo agoAcademia already underpays highly skilled people. Worsening long-term prospects for people in the area would just make more bright people quit sciences and go right into finance or other bullshit careers that pay more but are near zero-sum or net negative for humanity at large.
- aidenn0 6mo agoI was thinking like 35 years of tenure? That would take you from 30-65 or 35 to 70. There used to be forced retirement at 70 for academics so it's not without precedent.
- m463 6mo agodisruptive != impact