Scientific discoveries made by older people. Basic research. The smartest women of the 20th century

One of the greatest physicists of our time, Stephen Hawking, died on March 14, 2018 at the age of 77. During the discussion of the scientific works of the English physicist in the scientific community, one can often hear the comparison of Stephen Hawking with Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. What scientific discoveries deserve such a flattering comparison of a talented researcher specializing in the study of the Universe?

family of scientists

It would not be an exaggeration to say that fate itself prepared for Stephen Hawking a career as a scientist. The future outstanding physicist was born on January 8, 1942 in the family of a successful scientist specializing in medical research. Not surprisingly, the boy's father wanted his son to follow in his footsteps, continuing the family business. But young Stephen was more interested in mathematics, physics and astronomy since childhood. The boy passionately wanted to know how the universe really works. You have to give credit to Stephen Hawking's father. Seeing his son's passion for technology, he did not break his fate, insisting that he study medicine. Instead, he encouraged his studies in mathematics as much as he could. And his expectations were justified. The son not only excelled in the exact sciences, having received the title of professor at Oxford, his discoveries in the field of physics entered the golden fund of modern science. True, at the age of 20, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was discovered in a young man, which eventually turned the scientist into a disabled person confined to a wheelchair. Nevertheless, despite a serious illness, Stephen Hawking stubbornly continued to make one scientific discovery after another.

"Theory of Everything"

Exploring the features of the origin and development of the Universe, Stephen Hawking made perhaps the most important discovery in the field of modern astrophysics. With the help of Albert Einstein's equations written for the general theory of relativity, Stephen Hawking was the first in the world to be able to mathematically describe the state of the universe at the time of its birth. In fact, the English scientist proved that the universe had a beginning. True, in this case the question arises of what existed before her birth. Unfortunately, Stephen Hawking did not have time to answer this question. Nevertheless, based on the study of the most complex scientific disciplines of quantum mechanics and quantum gravity, a talented physicist tried to do the impossible - to create a "Theory of Everything".

Look into a black hole

The second world-class scientific discovery, made by Stephen Hawking at the end of the 20th century, was related to the vital activity of the black holes of the Universe. Before the advent of the theoretical calculations of Stephen Hawking, it was believed that black holes irretrievably absorb absolutely “everything” - from matter to various types of energy - and do not have an event horizon. This statement was refuted by the scientific works of Stephen Hawking, in which the physicist unambiguously proved that black holes are capable of not only absorbing, but also emitting various types of elementary particles, as well as information flows due to quantum processes occurring inside them.

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Modern society credits Stephen Hawking with his active life position on the issue of science popularization. A rare scientist, immersed in the most complex research in the field of quantum physics, astronomy and mathematics, is able to clearly explain the subject of his research to an ordinary layman. Stephen Hawking managed to do this by writing 14 popular science books in his life, which sold millions of copies. But the most popular among the reader was his essay "A Brief History of Time", published in 1988. In the book, the scientist tried to tell his readers in an accessible language about what space and time, black holes are, how new galaxies appear, when the Universe was born and after what time the Universe will die. The work turned out to be so entertaining that it was read more fascinating than any detective story. Subsequently, together with his daughter Lucy, Stephen Hawking created a book similar in content, adapting it for young children. Exclusively thanks to Stephen Hawking, kids all over the world were able to find out how the world they live in actually works.

Benedict Carey

Researchers studying 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, found that this has nothing to do with age. Quantifying the evolution of individual scientific impact. It turns out that the matter is a combination of such factors as character, perseverance and luck. And this is typical for a 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 a task.

Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, renowned physicist at Northeastern University in Boston

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

Indeed, significant discoveries were most often made in youth. But it turned out that it had nothing to do with age. The thing is: 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, a breakthrough can be made both at 25 and at 50 years old.

Do not write off luck. It is very important to choose the right project and the right time to work on it. However, whether such a lucky choice becomes a recognized contribution to science depends on another component, which scientists called Q.

Q includes factors as varied as intelligence, energy, motivation, openness to new ideas, and the ability to work with others.

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

“The Q factor is a very interesting phenomenon, because theoretically it includes abilities that people do not notice or appreciate in themselves,” says Zach Hambrick, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. - For example, the ability to clearly articulate their thoughts. Take, for example, such a science as mathematical psychology. You can publish interesting research, but if it is written in a complicated and confusing way (which is often the case), then you are unlikely to achieve scientific recognition. No one will simply understand what you are writing about.

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

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

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

The biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, for example, was 57 years old when he first published his work on evolution, and he did not publish his most significant work, Philosophy of Zoology, until he was 66 years old. This example reminds us that it is not a matter of age, but of social factors. Usually, scientists publish new controversial theories when they get older and already have a lot of knowledge and reputation.

Some studies work better for young scientists, others -

more mature. An unbiased, fresh look at things is given with

greater ease when you are not yet overloaded with knowledge and

shackled by established habits of thought. Monotonous, annoying

work is not so boring if you haven't done it yet

too much. Endless hours of standing at the laboratory or

of the operating table are easier when the legs are not yet worn out

over many decades of their operation. Brand new

the original idea usually (though not always)

the initial period of scientific activity, that is, when the most

the first and therefore the most difficult obstacles on the way to

confirmation of this idea can be overcome with regard to

benefits once it comes to difficult problems

coordination and development of a vast field of science. In this case

the most significant are precisely those qualities that

are formed with age: the practice of observation, familiarity with

a variety of methods, a broad knowledge of the literature and the ability

to lead in combination with the experience of understanding their colleagues. For

large-scale work of this kind is also needed

significant technical and financial resources and a large staff

employees. The progress of such work is accelerated if the underlying

certain recognition in the world. In this case, representatives

other areas of knowledge will be more likely to delve into

specific aspects of the problem being developed.

All these qualities come only with time. That's why

leadership of generalizing research in broad areas

knowledge is best achieved by mature and experienced scientists. However,

such work is excellent training for young members

research group. No matter how gifted the young man is,

he can't just force himself to discover a new original

fact. He should start with a job that would give him

opportunity to observe and reflect. Inspiration is just

comes in the course of such activity, and by the mere effort

you can't summon his will. Therefore, I strongly recommend to young people

scientists to start their careers as part of a group and, in addition,

conduct your own original research on any topic,

which they consider worthy of attention.

The real tragedy is overspecialization,

increasing with age, as well as forced distraction

attention from the chosen field of activity. The combination of these two

factors has the most paralyzing effect on the elderly

scientists. As time goes by, they become more and more adept at

their specialty, but, as I said, the whole society, as it were,

conspires to destroy them with the fruits of their own

own success. They must perform honorary

representative functions, to lead large institutions,

the creation of which they used to break through; they have to spend

time to view works (often very mediocre) by young people

colleagues applying for degrees, awards, etc.; they are invited

tell or write about your past accomplishments. They, be

maybe even managed to accumulate some capital and acquire

some property, but it takes time, and besides

enough to manage it all. And so it turns out that

the scientist has no time to think about that specific scientific work, for

which he is fully prepared to carry out and which he

1

“Everyone knows from childhood that this and that is impossible.

But there is always an ignoramus,

who does not know this.

He makes discoveries."

Albert Einstein

Over many centuries of human history, examples of the highest take-off of human talent at a young age have been accumulated, and mainly in such areas as music and poetry. Textbook examples of this are V.A. Mozart, who composed his first works at the age of five, M.Yu. Lermontov, who wrote the poem "The lonely sail turns white" at the age of 14.

Historical experience also shows that, in contrast to culture, in the field of science, the age limits for the manifestation of young talents are somewhat pushed back. But here, too, there are many examples of great discoveries made by very young people.

When pupils and students listen to lectures about the stories of great discoveries, the big names of bright scientists associated with these discoveries are for some reason associated with wise elders in wigs and gray beards. Few people think that scientists who made their most outstanding discoveries at a young age make up a large proportion of the total number of scientists. And it is worth focusing the attention of students on this, because young people perceive the laws and discoveries made once by their peers more vividly, and not by scientists "in years". Youthful maximalism gives rise to thoughts like: "Maybe in his age I'll discover something else!" And the facts of making remarkable discoveries at a very young age can serve as an incentive for students to develop their creative potential.

Let's find out what key positions young scientists occupy in such a modern science as computer science.

The contribution of young, and often still very young scientists to science is not only paradoxical, but also diverse.

For example, Blaise Pascal, one of the most famous people in the history of mankind, who lived only 39 years, is one of the creators of mathematical analysis, design geometry, probability theory, hydrostatics. He formulated the theorem about a hexagon inscribed in a conic section (Pascal's theorem) at the age of 16.

But the main thing is that he was the creator of a mechanical counting device: "Pascal's wheel", as contemporaries said. The son of a tax collector, Pascal conceived the idea of ​​building a computing device while watching his father's tedious endless calculations. In 1642, when Pascal was 19 years old, he began working on a adding machine. Pascal invented a machine capable of adding and subtracting, as well as carrying numbers to the next digits and calculating totals. As a result, he designed in a few years about 50 samples of an arithmetic machine. The machine, in its final form, was placed in a small oblong box and was easy to work with. And it is no coincidence that one of the most popular programming languages ​​is now named after Pascal.

Claude Elwood Shannon in his dissertation, he proved that the operation of switches and relays in electrical circuits can be represented using algebra, invented in the middle of the 19th century by the English mathematician George Boole.

Shannon, as a university student, majored in both mathematics and electrical engineering. This duality of interests and education determined his first major success. In 1936, university graduate Claude Shannon, then 21, bridged the gap between the algebraic theory of logic and its practical application.

Shannon, with two bachelor's degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics, acted as an operator on a clumsy mechanical computing device called a "differential analyzer", which was built in 1930 by Shannon's supervisor, Professor Vanniver Bush. As a dissertation topic, Bush suggested to Shannon that he study the logical organization of his machine. Gradually, the contours of the computer device began to emerge in Shannon. In 1940, Shannon defended his thesis on "Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits", later called the most outstanding master's (master's theses) work of the 20th century, and received a master's degree in electrical engineering.

Mark Andreesen- one of the youngest programmers in the world, famous for his outstanding computer developments, and most importantly, for the fact that he created them at such a young age - in his early 20s. At 21, Mark Andreesen and a young NCSA programmer, Eric Bean, created what would later be called Mosaic (the first Internet browser) after three months of night and weekend work. In October 1999, he founded his own firm, Loud cloud ("Thundercloud"), which wants to live up to the audacity of its name. At 28, when most young people are just thinking about life and planning what to do, Andreesen is already the patriarch of the Internet.

Just twenty years ago "there was no easy way to manipulate numbers on a computer screen, but in 1979 everything changed thanks to two graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston created VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet.

After analyzing the discoveries of five scientists: Blaise Pascal, Mark Andreesen, Linus Torvalds, Claude Shannon and Dan Bricklin, we can conclude that they all had one thing in common: these scientists can be awarded the title of "pioneers": they brought something to the world something completely new, something that had no prototypes.

For example, the computing device conceived by Leonardo da Vinci in the 17th century was not known to anyone during the life of Pascal. Therefore, the young scientist Pascal began building the device almost from scratch.

Currently, a fairly large number of programs for viewing Web pages have been developed: Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Opera, and others. And Mark Andreesen created the very first browser.

American physiologist W.B. Kennon conducted a survey of 232 scientists to identify the main inhibitory factors in their work. Here is what the German thinker Lichtenberg wrote about this: "People who read a lot rarely make big discoveries ... The discovery involves a deep and independent contemplation of things; you should see more yourself than repeat other people's words."

When discussing the phenomenon of young talents, one cannot help but recall the Russian mathematician Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev, who strongly recommended that his students study the classics well, and then go on their own feet, without wasting time studying periodicals.

But this, of course, is not all. As the famous actress Juliette Binom once said, “when you have everything, you don’t want to move somewhere at all. Only deprivation pushes you to search for the best!”. Vivid examples confirming this idea can be the work of many Russian scientists, for example, M.V. Lomonosov, I.M. Sechenov and others, who spent most of their lives in cramped material circumstances, which, nevertheless, did not prevent them from making great discoveries. As an example, one can also cite the productive work on creating new information by students Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates in the year Microsoft was founded, when they experienced financial difficulties.

So, let's sum up. What are the main reasons for the manifestation of brilliant insights in people at a young age?

Firstly, it is the age itself: "A person experiences the peak of cognitive abilities from 16 to 27 years old, and then there comes a period of systematization of the experience gained."

Secondly, it is a fresh, inexperienced, curious mind, providing the aforementioned "deep and independent contemplation of things", leading to brilliant discoveries.

Thirdly, deprivation, or the realization of the necessity and usefulness of something that stimulates the young scientist, makes him move higher and higher, not resting on his laurels and perceiving mistakes as a source of experience.

The authors of the article systematized the material on the topic "The contribution of young scientists to the development of computer science" and developed a paragraph of an electronic textbook using the HTML language. A test is attached to the paragraph. A testing program to test the acquired knowledge was created using HTML, JavaScript. This program randomly selects questions from the database in order to reduce the likelihood of cheating (the program is built in such a way that you cannot look and see the correct answers during the test).

This development serves as a stimulating factor for increasing interest in the subject and can be recommended for use in computer science classes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Demyanov V.P. Knight of exact knowledge. - M.: Knowledge, 1991, S. 50.
2. http://computer-museum.ru/galglory/shannonm.htm
3. Torvalds L., Diamond D. For pleasure. - M.: EKSMO Publishing House, 2002.
4. Yulia Matveeva // Aeroflot, No. 7, 2005.

Bibliographic link

Pozdyaev V.I., Pakshina A.P. ON THE PHENOMENON OF YOUNG TALENTS // Fundamental Research. - 2006. - No. 12. - P. 51-53;
URL: http://fundamental-research.ru/ru/article/view?id=5546 (date of access: 24.08.2019). We bring to your attention the journals published by the publishing house "Academy of Natural History"

Thanks to the discovery of American economists, the concept of "middle age" may forever be a thing of the past. It will be replaced by another, more pleasant one - the "age of genius." It is between 30 and 40 years that people come up with ingenious inventions and make amazing discoveries.

Scientists have long been trying to understand the nature of genius. The first study of the age of greatest productivity was carried out as early as 1874, but it has only recently been possible to get to the bottom of the truth.

Economists Benjamin Jones of Northwestern University and Bruce Weinberg of Ohio University analyzed which period in the life cycle accounted for the most Nobel Prize-winning inventions and discoveries and were able to calculate the "age of genius."

Einstein, you are 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 again." When the physicist came up with the special theory of relativity, he was only 26 years old. However, despite his own genius, in determining the age of greatest productivity, Einstein was still mistaken.

• Jones and Weinberg studied data on 544 Nobel laureates and 286 world-renowned inventors of the 20th century, and found that 93% of Nobel and simply significant discoveries were made by scientists over 26 years old.
• Some of the discoveries, indeed, are made at a fairly early age, however, the peak of productivity occurs between 30 and 40 years.
• The average age of genius in the 20th century is 39. After 40, the likelihood of doing something great drastic decreases.
• Even those who bloom early are most successful in later life. 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 child prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were written by him after 30.
• And Steve Jobs, who invented the first Apple computer with Steve Wozniak at the age of 21, only thought of the most commercially successful products in about 50.

Aging geniuses

If you look at the age of genius in a historical perspective, it turns out that with each century it increases. Isaac Newton discovered the theory of gravity when he was 23 years old - for the 17th century, this was the age of the peak of scientific form.

In the 20th century, the average age of scientific achievement rose by 6 years and, according to Jones, 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 distribution of the age of scientific discovery reflects this dynamic.
• Secondly, the amount of knowledge that a scientist needs to master in order to make a discovery has grown dramatically.
• To illustrate the effect that Jones and Weinberg call the "knowledge load" theory, economists give a simple example.
• In the 17th century, John Harvard, whose name is today the best university on the planet, had one of the most extensive scientific libraries of his time, it consisted of 320 volumes. Today, the US Library of Congress holds 35 million books.
• The number of new theories is snowballing every year, with more than two million studies published in scientific journals in 2012.

Physicists mature before biologists

Every discipline has its own "age of genius". In the exact sciences, it is less than in the natural ones. Among Americans who received the Nobel Prize before 1972, the average "age of genius" for physicists was 36, for chemists 39, and for physiologists 41.