[gumpzilla]

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There are a lot of important things old people have done in math and science too. Part of the reason breakthroughs are associated with young people is partly because it is more remarkable when someone does something very young (or very old) and it is remembered. It's also partly because when someone with a new remarkable brain gets his first chance to do something remarkable it's going to be when he or she is young and a lot of breakthroughs have to do with a having a new perspective.

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I think it has less to do with this, and more to do with the nature of what a breakthrough is. Successful older scientists are going to have much more formalized training thinking about things in the old ways, and that's a lot harder to break out of. The real revolutions are almost always youngsters. Plenty of good science gets done by people in their middle to late career, obviously, just not the kind of epochal theoretical breakthroughs that people are typically thinking of in this context.

I think brain atrophy is a pretty big effect. I've sort of gotten out of the habit of doing calculations and haven't gone to a class in a couple of years, and it's definitely showing. I'm trying to get myself back into a regimen of spending a couple hours a day working through new stuff to get back into mental shape.