31–40 of 75 posts
What about the correlation between testosterone levels and creativity? I think that those known for being well-performing in their old age are just exceptions. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00926...
An interesting observation from an inside perspective. I was aware of a few physicists who had "peaked" early in their careers, Einstein was a prominent example. That poets show the same pattern is something I just learned. About painters and other visual artists, it's true that many were still working and producing in their final years. OTOH it was often the case that in old age they worked in relative obscurity as…
This type of thinking does not help. There is no magic, there is no enchantment, there is only vision - the ability to see, to imagine, what others fail to imagine. Then it is an issue of communication, to tune others so they can imagine the new entity too. I believe this is a communications issue, and those individuals with intellectual gifts have an inner voice that communicates in non-complex basic ideas the gifted see transparently inside complexity.
Case in point: when first learning about normalized numbers, a friend smarter than I in the same class remarked "Oh! they are talking about my 'minis'!" - my friend had figured out, realized the value of normalized numbers when learning basic multiplication in elementary, assumed the concept was obvious and incorporated it everywhere he used multiplication - to the ire of his elementary and high school math teachers. I lost track of him, but I last was aware of him being a cross disciplinary professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
An interesting observation from an inside perspective. I was aware of a few physicists who had "peaked" early in their careers, Einstein was a prominent example. That poets show the same pattern is something I just learned. About painters and other visual artists, it's true that many were still working and producing in their final years. OTOH it was often the case that in old age they worked in relative obscurity as…
My personal theory on early peaking in physics and math is that the best proxy for intelligence, working memory, begins to measurably decline in your 40s. It likely begins to decline even prior to that, as our ability to measure it is very rough and imprecise, which seems to align well with ages when physics/math geniuses peak, ~30s.
I'm only going to give a small part of my thoughts, there's more, but let's keep a narrow focus for the forum format.
I'm less and less willing to submerge myself deep into fields far removed from daily life. I can still do it, and actually easier than ever before. I just don't want to. I feel it's not because I'm dumber, quite he opposite. It's because I understand and see sooooo much more than twenty years ago. I just don't see the point as much. I had a much more narrow view in my youth, and that allowed me to concentrate on narrow and deep subjects for long periods of time. I don't want to go into the reasons because that would really explode the text volume and mix subjective and objective things that would in turn require quite some effort in untangling. I also care quite a bit less about "progress" because I lost a lot of idealism. In that sense, understanding more of the world might be counterproductive for productivity...
I think I can claim I'm a lot more capable with my brain than two decades ago. I tested it by taking numerous edX and Coursera courses, quite a few of the very challenging, and I was invited to become a C[ommunity]TA several times in courses way outside my own field, including math stuff that I had difficulties with in the past. My job is not standard stuff either.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My personal theory on early peaking in physics and math is that the best proxy for intelligence, working memory, begins to measurably decline in your 40s. It likely begins to decline even prior to that, as our ability to measure it is very rough and imprecise, which seems to align well with ages when physics/math geniuses peak, ~30s.
I had the same opinion as you for some time, but I'm reconsidering that stance since I went back to university in my 40s. To say I have a very bad working memory is an understatement. I'm distracted by just about anything (like now by the noisy neighborhood) and it has been like this "forever". Still, I was able to graduate with honors and outperform the students with an impressive working memory, even in projects in…
I recently went back to university, and they tend to have exams that favor the young: lots of memorization and much more questions than there is time to answer. So I probably would have done academically better with my younger brain, however, I feel like I understand the material and the context much better than I would have before.
An interesting observation from an inside perspective. I was aware of a few physicists who had "peaked" early in their careers, Einstein was a prominent example. That poets show the same pattern is something I just learned. About painters and other visual artists, it's true that many were still working and producing in their final years. OTOH it was often the case that in old age they worked in relative obscurity as…
To me, is a society and ego issue. When you're 20-30 something and a nobody in your field, but a privileged mind, you keep your eyes open to all posibilities. You are hardworking and then results come. Then you gain a name and have all eyes on you and your mental processes change. Suddenly with your opinions, you've got a reputation to defend. You're aware of those supporting you and those who are not. You're reasoni…
When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. This is what did Shannon in. After information theory, what do you do for an encore? The great scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big thing right off. And that isn't the way things go."
> Mathematicians, a different breed entirely, had Leonhard Euler and Carl Friedrich Gauss who kept going until a very old age, for their times—76 and 77—despite starting very early, as mathematicians seem to do. This is not a universal trend: in the twentieth century, David Hilbert at 81 and André Weil at 92 are the only exemplars that come to mind. What about Paul Erdős?
How many academic scientists end up being buried in managing science, particularly seeking funding? There’s way fewer aristocrats funding scientists as they would a zoo. Maybe the most visible advances come from those hungry enough and with time enough to do it? Some of these older fellows trained a lot of students, such as bethe or wheeler. How old were the bell labs people when they did plan 9? Is Knuth still consi…
Not sure about other people on the Plan 9 team. But presumably they were all highly skilled and experienced engineers.
The key question is who were their disciples? How much of their knowledge has been passed down to the next generation?
> Mathematicians, a different breed entirely, had Leonhard Euler and Carl Friedrich Gauss who kept going until a very old age, for their times—76 and 77—despite starting very early, as mathematicians seem to do. This is not a universal trend: in the twentieth century, David Hilbert at 81 and André Weil at 92 are the only exemplars that come to mind. What about Paul Erdős?
Nice point. I think they still started very young. I wonder if there are examples of late bloomer mathematicians, that did great work despite not learning any advanced maths before their 30s or 40s.
Raymond Smullyan got his BSc in his late 30s and went on to write highly acclaimed textbooks and teach at universities, although I'm not exactly sure about his research accomplishments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Smullyan
EDIT: see also this list https://mathoverflow.net/questions/3591/mathematicians-who-w...
An interesting observation from an inside perspective. I was aware of a few physicists who had "peaked" early in their careers, Einstein was a prominent example. That poets show the same pattern is something I just learned. About painters and other visual artists, it's true that many were still working and producing in their final years. OTOH it was often the case that in old age they worked in relative obscurity as…