A middle-aged genius
Scientists have calculated the "age of genius"
Scientists have been trying to understand the nature of genius for a long time. The first study of the age of greatest productivity was conducted back in 1874, but it was only recently possible to get to the truth.
Economists Benjamin Jones of Northwestern University and Bruce Weinberg of Ohio University analyzed which period of the life cycle accounted for the most inventions and discoveries awarded the Nobel Prize, and were able to calculate the "age of genius" (Benjamin Jones, E.J. Reedy, Bruce A. Weinberg, Age and Scientific Genius).
Einstein, you're wrong The great physicist Albert Einstein once quipped that "a person who has not made a great contribution to science by the age of thirty will never make it."
When the physicist came up with the special theory of relativity, he was only 26 years old. However, despite his own genius, Einstein still made a mistake in determining the age of the greatest productivity.
Jones and Weinberg examined data on 544 Nobel laureates and 286 internationally recognized inventors of the 20th century, and found that 93% of Nobel and simply significant discoveries were made by scientists over the age of 26.
Some of the discoveries, indeed, are made at a fairly early age, however, the peak of productivity falls on the period between 30 and 40 years.
The average age of genius in the 20th century is 39 years. After 40, the probability of doing something great drastically decreases.
Even those who flourished early achieve the greatest success at a more mature age. The same Einstein made the greatest contribution to the theory of relativity in the 1930s, when he was already over 50 years old.
Nicolaus Copernicus completed his revolutionary theory of planetary motion at the age of 60.
The most famous works of the prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were written by him after 30.
And Steve Jobs, who came up with the first Apple computer together with Steve Wozniak at the age of 21, thought of the most commercially successful products only about 50.
Aging geniuses
If we look at the age of genius in historical perspective, it turns out that it increases with each century. Isaac Newton discovered the theory of gravity when he was 23 years old – for the 17th century it was the age of the peak of scientific form.
In the 20th century, the average age of the greatest scientific performance increased by 6 years and, according to Jones' forecast, will continue to grow. Scientists explain the aging of geniuses by two main factors.
First, the world has experienced a major demographic shift over the past century. The human life cycle has changed, and the age distribution of scientific discoveries reflects this dynamic.
Secondly, the amount of knowledge that a scientist needs to master in order to make a discovery has dramatically increased.
As an illustration of the effect that Jones and Weinberg call the "knowledge load" theory, economists give a simple example.
In the 17th century, John Harvard, whose name the best university on the planet is named after today, had one of the most extensive scientific libraries of its time, it consisted of 320 volumes. Today, the Library of Congress holds 35 million books.
The number of new theories is growing like a snowball every year, in 2012 more than two million studies were published in scientific journals.
Physicists mature before biologists
Each discipline has its own "age of genius". In the exact sciences, it is less than in the natural sciences. Among Americans who received the Nobel Prize before 1972, the average "age of genius" for physicists was 36 years, for chemists – 39 years, and for physiologists – 41 years.
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