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I was curious as to whether this was true, so to test it out, I looked at Hilbert's Problems[0], which are widely considered some of the most important problems
by SatvikBeri 14y ago
I was curious as to whether this was true, so to test it out, I looked at Hilbert's Problems[0], which are widely considered some of the most important problems in Mathematics in the 20th century. Of the solvers whose ages I could find on Wikipedia, the median age was 30.5 and the mean was 29.4. (For Hilbert's 10th problem the solution is listed as the joint work of 4 people. I treated them as one person with an average age of 42.5)
This obviously isn't statistically significant, but it lends some weight to the myth that Mathematicians "die young."
- mcartyem 14y agoThis is great research, thank you.
- Evbn 14y agoYou see the effect in math because math requires the sharpest most complex pure thinking. Other major creative efforts (business, movies) involve collaboration and social/organizational structures that benefit from years of relationship-building and reputation-building. Or years of drudgery, if your innovation is something like the world's first dictionary.