How our success depends on age: the opinion of scientists

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Charles Darwin was 29 when he created the theory of natural selection, Einstein published his major works at 26, and Mozart wrote his first symphony at 8. Whether the most significant breakthroughs are really made at a young age - the journalist of The New York Times tried to find out.

Researchers who study the achievements of famous people have long noticed that in many areas of activity, the most significant successes are made in young years. However, an analysis of the lives and careers of many scientists, published recently in the journal Science, revealed that this has nothing to do with age. It turns out that it is a combination of factors such as character, perseverance and luck. And this is typical for a wide variety of fields of activity - from music and cinema to science.

The main thing is not to give up. When you give up, you lose the ability to get creative with the task at hand.

Albert-Laszlo Barabasi famous physicist from Northeastern University in Boston

At first, the researchers considered only physicists. They sifted through the literature from modern to 1893 editions, selected 2,856 physicists who had worked for 20 years or longer, and published at least one work every five years. At the same time, the frequently cited works were taken as the most influential and analyzed how many of them were during the career of a scientist.

Indeed, significant discoveries were most often made in youth. But it turned out that this has nothing to do with age directly. It's all about productivity: young scientists are doing more experiments, and this increases the likelihood of discovering something really important. That is, if you work with the same productivity, you can make a breakthrough at both 25 and 50 years old.

You shouldn't write off your luck either. It is very important to choose the right project and the right time to work on it. However, whether such a successful choice will become a generally recognized contribution to science depends on another component, which scientists called Q.

Q includes factors as diverse as intelligence, energy, motivation, openness to new ideas, and the ability to work with other people.

Simply put, it is the ability to get the most out of what you are working on: to see relevance in a routine experiment and be able to express your idea.

“The Q factor is a very interesting phenomenon because, in theory, it includes abilities that people don't recognize or appreciate about themselves,” says Zach Hambrick, professor of psychology at Michigan State University. - For example, the ability to clearly articulate your thoughts. Take at least such a science as mathematical psychology. You can publish an interesting study, but if it is written in a complicated and confusing way (as it often happens), then you are unlikely to achieve scientific recognition. No one will simply understand what you are writing about."

Surprisingly, according to the researchers, Q does not change over time. Contrary to popular belief, experience does not at all increase the ability to find something new and important in the current work. “This is amazing,” says Barabashi. "We found that all three factors - Q, productivity and luck - are independent of each other."

Summarizing these results, the researchers concluded that successful discoveries are made with a simultaneous combination of three factors: certain qualities of a scientist, Q and luck. And age is not that important.

Perhaps, with age, only one factor influencing success can change - status. When a scientist has an established reputation, he is not so afraid to take risks.

Biologist Jean Baptiste Lamarck, for example, was 57 years old when he first published his work on evolution, and his most significant work, The Philosophy of Zoology, was published only at 66 years old. This example reminds us that it's not about age, but about social factors. Scientists usually publish new controversial theories when they get older and already have a lot of knowledge and reputation.