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What major works of literature were written after age of 85? 75? 65?

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Re: What major works of literature were written after age of 85? 75? 65?

#91

Post by FelipeCortez »

andai wrote: post #80
FelipeCortez wrote: post #22

This is actually a good fit for a Wikidata SPARQL query you can run here https://query.wikidata.org/ : SELECT ?work ?workLabel ?author ?authorLabel ?publicationDate ?ageAtPublication WHERE { ?author wdt:P569 ?birth . ?author wdt:P570 ?death . ?author wdt:P800 ?work . ?work wdt:P50 ?author ; wdt:P31 wd:Q47461344 ; wdt:P577 ?publicationDate . FILTER(?publicationDate 60) SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase…

How can I learn more about this? I looked into it recently but didn't get very far. This seems like the kind of thing that should be more widely known, and have some good tutorials written for it :)

The Wikidata documentation is good:

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Introduction

And you can find lots of SPARQL examples here:

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:SPARQL_query_service/...

Re: What major works of literature were written after age of 85? 75? 65?

#92

Post by CobrastanJorji »

FelipeCortez wrote: post #22

This is actually a good fit for a Wikidata SPARQL query you can run here https://query.wikidata.org/ : SELECT ?work ?workLabel ?author ?authorLabel ?publicationDate ?ageAtPublication WHERE { ?author wdt:P569 ?birth . ?author wdt:P570 ?death . ?author wdt:P800 ?work . ?work wdt:P50 ?author ; wdt:P31 wd:Q47461344 ; wdt:P577 ?publicationDate . FILTER(?publicationDate 60) SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase…

This is a very cool query tool that I haven't seen before, thanks! (Also the syntax drives me a little batty).

I tried modifying it to give me authors whose first publication (any publication at all) happened after 60 years old, but also who had at least one wdt:P800 work. I got people like Cato the Elder, Josephus, and William of Tyre.

I tried again for only people born in the 20th century, and I got some results (plus quite a bit of wrong answers, presumably something about the query or data)! Oddly quite a few of the results are from criminals who wrote an autobiography after their release, including Henri Charrière and the infamous Nazi, Albert Speer.

Re: What major works of literature were written after age of 85? 75? 65?

#93

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

randomNumber7 wrote: post #89
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% true about chess but I think there's more nuance to it. In 6th grade, I had gone to a chess coach who were a friend of my father (technically my father knew his father very well). It was my birthday/a day close to it IIRC and I wanted to learn chess. He was an international-master (or close to it) /National-master (I think he just had one norm less) and he told me about his story and everything, but he said that…

Magnus Carlsen is still absolutely destroying anyone else in his 30s. By far. He didn't compete for the world champion becaue he didn't want to put in the effort for the preparation (again). Also it would have been boring if he played it because he would have won again. He intentionally starts with subobtimal openings at major turnaments because of boredom and still wins.

Yes, magnus carlsen is a legendary player/the best player right now, there isn't much denying about it.

Regarding boredom, I think that either it was magnus or hikaru who are/were really optimistic about chess960 (randomized chess essentially) because they have less value to openings and more values to the more live-ness of the situation so it has some exciting element to it.

At a certain point for magnus, there really is only enough excitement within classical chess if you are the best players in the world. But he seems excited about chess960

(Edit: you have accidentally made me wonder but would hackernews like a chess club of our community [preferably within lichess]?) https://lichess.org/team/hackernews-chess-club (The password is dang) :]

Edit2: Interestingly, there is already a hackernews-chess-club after searching back on hackernews, https://lichess.org/team/hacker-news, but they had the idea 6 years ago interesting :)

Re: What major works of literature were written after age of 85? 75? 65?

#94

Post by yCombLinks »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #64

There are a suspicously large number of very straight diagonal lines on those graphs with identical slopes. I might predict that they are individual famous authors that released a lot of works, but the slopes are all identical. What's going on there?

All of the authors age at a rate of 1 year per year

Re: What major works of literature were written after age of 85? 75? 65?

#95

Post by bsder »

musictubes wrote: post #73
TimPC wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think pop musicians are capable of doing greater works later, but the perception of pop works are so heavily influenced by the image/presentation of the artist that we view the works as lesser. I don't think there is something fundamentally different about pop music that leads to best works being earlier relative to other genres of music beyond that.

If we limit the definition of pop music to what charts I think it makes all the sense in the world that it is a young person’s game. So much of what drives chart success is what is in fashion at the time. Trend setting will always be the domain of youngsters. If we expand the definition of pop music to all music that isn’t classical/jazz/experimental, etc. then older, more experienced musicians should be able to do q…

> So much of what drives chart success is what is in fashion at the time. Trend setting will always be the domain of youngsters.

I would suggest it's more the demands of poverty that make it a young person's game. So, so, so many pop musicians were "I was living in squalor for a decade plus was extremely depressed and was about to hang it up when and we got popular." Huey Lewis, Annie Lennox, ... I can go on and on.

There was a metal artist that was being interviewed about when they were going to tour again and was "Yeah, we'll consider it. But I've got a lot of work at my tattoo business right now." There was another guy that was like "Yeah, had this fame hit in our 20s this would be nice but in our late 30s it isn't really useful. We figured out how to do life by now, and we're not going to disrupt that."

Re: What major works of literature were written after age of 85? 75? 65?

#96

Post by jebarker »

zulux wrote: post #51
somenameforme wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot is driven by environmental rather than genetic factors. For instance the article mentions that both The Road, and No Country for Old Men were written when Cormack was in his 70s. But very few people in their 70s are even trying to write, let alone get published. I think there's something similar in chess where players tend to peak around their mid to late 30s. But a major issue there is that that's also…

Sort of confirm: I'm older, and my mind is fine, I just don't care as much anymore. I'm comfortably numb as the song goes.

What do you think caused you to stop caring as much? I’ve been becoming more aware of my finitude recently for a variety of reasons relating to middle-age and having kids. A side effect of that is definitely caring less about lots of things in order to focus on others. But I have an internal battle going on with the part of me that says I should still be ambitious and make a dent in the world.

Re: What major works of literature were written after age of 85? 75? 65?

#98

Post by kcexn »

abetusk wrote: post #58
mellosouls wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A useful link but note: a) the curve indicates 30s not 40s b) there is no breakdown into theoretical vs experimental research, or scientific field; theory I would expect to be over-represented at the younger end especially as the science discipline becomes "harder". Overall I would say it lends credence to the idea physics is a young person's game at the very highest levels.

a) the inflection point is in the high 30s. Further $\int_{40}^{50} f(x) dx > \int_{20}^{30} f(x) dx$. b) true there is no breakdown but I would expect the exact opposite as fields get harder. More context requires more training and familiarity, which I would expect to increase age. My point is that I think there's a bias in the field towards the youth narrative but the majority of discovery, even in physics, happens…

I don't think there is a bias in the field towards a youth narrative. I think there is a bias in the media.

Nobody I've ever met would expect a breakthrough from a 20 something year old no matter how much of a genius they are. Communicating a breakthrough requires time, effort, and credibility to begin with, which nobody has at that age.

Your 30's are when you can start to really do great things. And then depending on the field you can kind of just keep going as long as you have the energy for it. But lots of people begin to wear out into their 40's (for lots of different reasons).

In terms of great breakthroughs. If you haven't had your great idea by 40. It's probably increasingly unlikely that you'll have one later in life (but not impossible). Not everyone needs to have a paradigm changing idea to have a successful career though.

Re: What major works of literature were written after age of 85? 75? 65?

#99

Post by mna_ »

randomNumber7 wrote: post #89
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% true about chess but I think there's more nuance to it. In 6th grade, I had gone to a chess coach who were a friend of my father (technically my father knew his father very well). It was my birthday/a day close to it IIRC and I wanted to learn chess. He was an international-master (or close to it) /National-master (I think he just had one norm less) and he told me about his story and everything, but he said that…

Magnus Carlsen is still absolutely destroying anyone else in his 30s. By far. He didn't compete for the world champion becaue he didn't want to put in the effort for the preparation (again). Also it would have been boring if he played it because he would have won again. He intentionally starts with subobtimal openings at major turnaments because of boredom and still wins.

For the most part, he plays normal openings. If he does play something offbeat, it's because he's trying to avoid prep.

Re: What major works of literature were written after age of 85? 75? 65?

#100

Post by suddenlybananas »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #66
marstall wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and he wrote them when he was completely blind!

Well, his amanuenses and slave-daughters wrote them, he just spoke the words

What are you referring to with his "slave daughters"?
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