For some reason, Alfred Nobel didn't endow a mathematics prize, but John Fields, secretary of the International Mathematical Union in 1931, did, and the Fields Medal is the math equivalent of the Nobel in that discipline. Four winners every four years get the medal, all under 40 years of age.
This year, an Adelaide man by the name of Professor Terence Tao, won one. He's 31, and was a professor at 24, at the University of California. Apparently he was something of a child prodigy, being tutored in university level maths at 12. Congratulations. I can only find comfort, though, knowing that mathematicians peak at 30, while philosophers peak at 70...
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The New York Times offers an article profiling Terence Tao, mostly focussing on his child prodigy background:
Dr. Tao has drawn attention and curiosity throughout his life for his prodigious abilities. By age 2, he had learned to read. At 9, he attended college math classes. At 20, he finished his…
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History has had no shortage of outstanding female mathematicians, from Hypatia of Alexandria to Ada Lovelace, and yet no woman has ever won the Fields medal - the Nobel prize of the maths world. The fact that men outnumber women in the highest echelons of mathematics (as in science, technology and…
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You might be comforted to know that mathematicians peak early, but I'm sure you'll also be pleased to know that, like everything else in biology, their peak is very variable. Friend of mine became mildly famous for proving an important theorem when he was about 50.