Thoughts on aging's effect on learning and intelligence

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Ok, that mathematics thing is something I read a while back. Let me ask you something though, since I know nothing about the state of modern mathematics. When I think of genius I don't just picture someone who solved a tough proof or made some kind of advancement that happens every few years.

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Some 'tough proofs' are hundreds of years in the making or more. For example, Fermat's Last Theorem, the Green-Tao theorem on the infinitude of primes in given arithmetic progressions, Poincare's conjecture (this is just under 100 years). An answer to the Riemann hypothesis (age: about 175 years) would be more profound than all of the above combined.

By the way, Wiles was over 40 when FLT was settled, Green and Tao were about 28 and 30 when they established the Green-Tao theorem, and Perelman was just under 40 when he solved Poincare.

This doesn't answer your question of course. Here are some major 'revolutions' in math in the last 100 years or so.

Grothendieck lays the foundation for modern algebraic geometry - about 30 at the time.
Ito constructs the Ito integral (stochastic integration) - under 30 at the time
Kolmogorov builds probability theory in a rigorous way - about 30 years old at the time
Lebesgue defines the Lebesgue integral - under 30 at the time

It would certainly seem to appear that a lot of the great breakthroughs in math in the last 100 years or so were done by very young, brilliant individuals.

[Analyst]

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So when you get in your 30s and 40s you lose maybe a little bit of raw intellect, and a lot of your willingness/ability to learn new concepts.

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The above may be true, but my experience is somewhat contrary. I've gotten three college degrees - at 21, 31 and 41 - with the last one coming from the best school of the bunch, and done better each time. Not just better grades (which aren't really comparable), but I feel that I've learned more, and learned more easily, with each succesive return to school. I suspect that a better ability to focus has more than offset any declining raw mental horsepower (well, gerbil power . . . ).

[Sooga]

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So what can I do to keep my brain from atrophy?

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I'm to take a guess, and honestly I've never thought of this before, that learning poker or new forms of poker can probably help. Also having a career that challenges you to keep learning. Barring those, any other intellectual hobby can probably help.

But I don't know if crossword puzzles count. While they require thought, I don't know they really stimulate any kind of learning.

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I'm not a neurologist LDO, but I don't think that learning new things is even that important in re: to brain not atrophying. I think the important thing is just to keep your mind working. Doing crosswords, random math in your head (i.e. just adding numbers you see as you drive along or whatever), sudokus, whatever. I think anything you have to actually devote some real thought/logic to will keep your brain from going to mush.

I think another big key is just being curious about things in general, and thinking about why things are the way they are. Some of the students I have just make me sad because they don't question anything. They just want answers. I honestly think if I went through a whole school year and just taught completely random equations that made no sense, that 90% of my kids would just take it to be the truth and not even verify that what I was teaching them had any basis in truth.

I know personally I don't really learn a TON of new stuff all the time, but I definitely try to keep my brain working as often as I can.

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So what can I do to keep my brain from atrophy?

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I'm not a neurologist LDO, but I don't think that learning new things is even that important in re: to brain not atrophying. I think the important thing is just to keep your mind working. Doing crosswords, random math in your head (i.e. just adding numbers you see as you drive along or whatever), sudokus, whatever. I think anything you have to actually devote some real thought/logic to will keep your brain from going to mush.


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I am surprised by the lack of neurologists on this forum. I have taken enough courses to comment. Your statement is mostly accurate. Crossword puzzles count too, and in fact I believe have specifically been studied wrt Alzheimer's. To solve the clue you need to grab a memory and form a new association for it.

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I think another big key is just being curious about things in general, and thinking about why things are the way they are. Some of the students I have just make me sad because they don't question anything. They just want answers. I honestly think if I went through a whole school year and just taught completely random equations that made no sense, that 90% of my kids would just take it to be the truth and not even verify that what I was teaching them had any basis in truth.


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But learning this way has its place too if you don't want to reinvent the wheel. In fact, I think the reason kids learn faster is because they DON'T view their instructor with a critical eye. My dad, with his Master's degree in math, can't learn poker, because every friggin time I tell him a poker concept, if I tell him that it came from a book, he starts saying that there are a lot of bad books out there, and then he starts working the probabilities for himself in his head. I'm lucky if I can get through one concept, and I'm lucky if he even remembers what it was when we get done working through the probabilities.

As for where that leaves creative insight, I always find that my most creative insights come from misunderstanding things. The most surefire way to have an insight, though, is to combine two different fields. There's almost a formula to it.