It goes without saying those achieving breakthroughs have been building up to that moment basically all their adult (and most likely teenage) life. As a soon t

It goes without saying those achieving breakthroughs have been building up to that moment basically all their adult (and most likely teenage) life. As a soon to be 40 year old jack of many trades but master of none, I am still looking for someone achieving anything meaningful starting from scratch later in life. What I mean by this is someone achieving a mastery of some skill, when one has not done deliberate practice previously. I suspect the answer is that unless you have been building your inner pattern recognition for basics of your field of expertise since late teens/early twenties, you are unlikely to get very far starting at the later age. For example Einstein already had fluid mastery of calculus at 15 (just like Feynman), which was a nice building block for later work. I am not even going to start on Von Neumann.