How old were history’s great minds at their breakthrough?

01 Key findings

1. Median age 39. Across 663 dated breakthroughs that won a prize in physics, chemistry or medicine (1901-2026), the median age at the work was 39: physicists at 35, chemists at 39 and medical scientists at 39.IQ Metrics analysis of Li et al. 2019 and the Nobel Prize API, 663 breakthroughs
2. Breakthroughs come later than they used to. Work done before 1920: median 36, 31% at 40 or older. Work done from 1980 on: median 41, 61% at 40 or older. Physics stayed near 35 for work up to 1979, then rose to 41.IQ Metrics analysis; 94 and 171 breakthroughs in the two periods
3. The wait for the prize grew from 8 to 30 years. For prizes of 1920-1939 the median gap between the work and the prize was 8 years; for prizes of 2020-2026 it was 30 years, and the median laureate was 71 in the prize year.IQ Metrics analysis; 69 and 52 breakthroughs in those periods
4. Late bloomers are not rare. 11% of the breakthroughs came at 50 or older. The oldest: John B. Fenn, 72 at the work in 1989. The youngest: Theodore W. Richards, 19 in 1887.IQ Metrics analysis of 663 breakthroughs
5. Women and men broke through at about the same age: a median of 37 for the 27 breakthroughs by women and 39 for the 636 by men.Sex as recorded by the Nobel Prize API; IQ Metrics analysis
6. The historical geniuses were older at their best-known work: a median of 41.5 for 132 scientists, writers, philosophers, artists and composers born 1450-1850 (Cox 1926).Best-known work and its date: Wikidata; people: Cox 1926 via IQ Metrics

02 The short answer in four numbers

The lone young genius is the exception in our data. The typical prize-winning breakthrough came at 39, and the age keeps rising.

Leon Falkner, IQ Metrics Research

03 At what age do scientists make their greatest discoveries?

We dated the prize-winning work of 663 laureate-prizes in physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine, from the first prizes in 1901 to the 2026 laureates ^{[1] [3] [2]}. The age is the year of the work minus the year of birth. The median is 39; the middle half of the breakthroughs fell between 33 and 44.

Figure 1

How old the laureates were when they did the prize-winning work

All 663 breakthroughs in physics, chemistry and medicine whose year we could date (prizes 1901-2026), in five-year age bands. 1 under 20 is in the first band.

165914614714280471961Median: 39

203040506070

Age in the year of the work

The spread is wide: 11% of the breakthroughs came before 30, 44% at 40 or older and 11% at 50 or older. Albert Einstein was 26 in 1905, the year of the light-quanta paper behind the 1921 physics prize.

04 What is the peak age of creativity in each field?

Physicists made their prize-winning breakthroughs youngest (median 35, 95% interval 34 to 38), then chemists (39, 37 to 41) and medical scientists (39, 39 to 40). The gap between fields is a few years; the spread inside each field is decades wide.

Figure 2

Age at the breakthrough, field by field

Each dot is one person; the shape shows where the ages bunch; the navy tick is the median. Laureates: the year of the prize-winning work. The historical geniuses of Cox (1926): the year of the best-known work recorded in Wikidata, a different measure.

Spread (density)personMedian

Physics laureates229 people35.0

Chemistry laureates201 people39.0

Medicine laureates233 people39.0

Scientists born 1450-185020 people44.0

Philosophers born 1450-185016 people43.0

Writers born 1450-185069 people40.0

Artists and composers born 1450-185022 people38.5

102030405060708090

Age in the year of the work

For the geniuses Catharine Cox rated in 1926 ^[6], born between 1450 and 1850, there is no prize-winning paper to date, so we took the best-known work Wikidata records for each person and its date ^[5]. That is a different measure: a famous book, theory or composition, not a prize citation. Cox’s scientists produced theirs at a median 44 (20 people), the philosophers at 43 (16), the writers at 40 (69) and the artists and composers at 38.5 (22).

05 Are great discoveries made later than they used to be?

Yes, in all three fields. Work done before 1920 was made at a median 36; work done from 1980 on at 41. The share made at 40 or older rose from 31% to 61%, and the share made before 30 fell from 24% to 4%.

Figure 3

The breakthrough age has risen in all three fields

Median age at the prize-winning work done before 1920 (94 breakthroughs) and from 1980 on (171).

PhysicsAll three fieldsChemistry, medicine

Work before 1920<1920Work from 19801980+

Physics 35.0Chemistry 36.0Medicine 36.5All three fields 36.0

41.0 Physics42.0 Chemistry40.0 Medicine41.0 All three fields

Medians move in half-years because a period with an even count takes the middle of two ages.

Physics had a young golden age: in the 1920s quantum mechanics was built largely by people in their twenties ^[7] (in our data Heisenberg was 24 and Dirac 23 in 1925). The physics breakthrough age stayed near 35 for work up to 1979, then rose to 41 for work from 1980 on. Chemistry rose step by step, from 36 to 42; medicine moved least, from 36.5 to 40.

Figure 4

Median breakthrough age by field and period of the work

Median age in the year of the prize-winning work. Blank: fewer than five breakthroughs in that cell. Darker = older.

30 or younger50 or older

<1920<201920-3920-391940-5940-591960-7960-791980-9980-992000+00+Physics35.033.035.034.540.0Chemistry36.037.538.041.042.044.0Medicine36.539.040.039.040.042.5All three fields36.036.038.038.041.043.5

Jones and Weinberg (2011) found this rise first, in 525 laureates up to 2008: the mean age at the prize-winning work grew by 13.4 years in physics, 10.2 in chemistry and 7.4 in medicine between work done by 1905 and work done from 1985. They link it to longer training and to the end of the theory-driven quantum era ^[7]. Our data, built independently from other sources and running to 2026, show a rise in every field too: about the same in chemistry (+11.2 years) but smaller in physics (+6.9) and medicine (+5.4). Only 18 to 19 breakthroughs per field date from 1905 or earlier, and the two studies date the work by different rules, so treat the early numbers as rough:

Table 1

Our numbers next to Jones and Weinberg (2011)

Measure	Jones & Weinberg	IQ Metrics
Physics: rise in mean age, work by 1905 to work from 1985	+13.4 years	+6.9 years (n = 19, 37)
Chemistry: rise in mean age, work by 1905 to work from 1985	+10.2 years	+11.2 years (n = 18, 45)
Medicine: rise in mean age, work by 1905 to work from 1985	+7.4 years	+5.4 years (n = 18, 36)
Physics: work by 1905 done before 40	60%	63% (n = 19)
Chemistry: work by 1905 done before 40	69%	89% (n = 18)
Medicine: work by 1905 done before 40	63%	72% (n = 18)
Physics: mean age of work from 1980 on	48	42.1 (n = 53)

06 How long after the breakthrough does the prize come?

Longer and longer, after a start that honoured older work. The first prizes, 1901-1919, went partly to discoveries made before the prize existed: a median wait of 13 years. For prizes of 1920-1939 the median laureate waited 8 years after the work; for prizes of 2020-2026, 30 years. Over all 663 breakthroughs the median wait is 18 years and the longest 59.

Figure 5

Years from the breakthrough to the prize, by period of the prize

Median number of years between the prize-winning work and the prize, for the breakthroughs we could date. Breakthroughs per period: 1901-1919: 56, 1920-1939: 69, 1940-1959: 84, 1960-1979: 122, 1980-1999: 126, 2000-2019: 154, 2020-2026: 52.

13.0'01-19

8.0'20-39

13.5'40-59

14.5'60-79

19.5'80-99

26.0'00-19

30.0'20-26

The longest wait was Karl von Frisch’s: 28 at the work in 1914 and 87 in the prize year, 1973. The prize is not given after death, so a long wait also takes a long life.

Figure 6

The longest waits: age at the work and age in the prize year

The 12 laureates with the longest gap between the prize-winning work and the prize.

Age at the workAge in the prize year

Karl von Frisch (Medicine 1973)2887

Syukuro Manabe (Physics 2021)3390

Peyton Rous (Medicine 1966)3187

Roger Penrose (Physics 2020)3489

Ernst Ruska (Physics 1986)2680

James Peebles (Physics 2019)3084

Vitaly L. Ginzburg (Physics 2003)3487

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Physics 1983)2173

John H. Van Vleck (Physics 1977)2778

Sir John B. Gurdon (Medicine 2012)2979

John Clauser (Physics 2022)3080

François Englert (Physics 2013)3281

2030405060708090100

Age in years

07 Who were the youngest discoverers, and who bloomed late?

Theodore W. Richards was the youngest at the breakthrough: 19 in 1887. At the other end, John B. Fenn was 72. 11% of all breakthroughs, about one in 9, came at 50 or older.

Table 2

The youngest and the oldest at the breakthrough

	Laureate (prize)	Prize-winning work	Year	Age then	Age at prize
Youngest	Theodore W. Richards (Chemistry 1914)	accurate determinations of the atomic weight of a large number of …	1887	19	46
Youngest	Guglielmo Marconi (Physics 1909)	contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy	1895	21	35
Youngest	Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Physics 1983)	the structure and evolution of the stars	1931	21	73
Youngest	Joshua Lederberg (Medicine 1958)	genetic recombination and the organization of the genetic material …	1946	21	33
Youngest	Wilhelm Ostwald (Chemistry 1909)	catalysis and for his investigations into the fundamental …	1875	22	56
Youngest	Owen Willans Richardson (Physics 1928)	the thermionic phenomenon and especially for the discovery of the …	1901	22	49
Oldest	John B. Fenn (Chemistry 2002)	ionisation methods for mass spectrometry	1989	72	85
Oldest	Robert F. Furchgott (Medicine 1998)	nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system	1980	64	82
Oldest	Charles J. Pedersen (Chemistry 1987)	development and use of molecules with structure-specific …	1967	63	83
Oldest	Egas Moniz (Medicine 1949)	the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses	1937	63	75
Oldest	Masatoshi Koshiba (Physics 2002)	pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the …	1987	61	76
Oldest	Otto Hahn (Chemistry 1944)	the fission of heavy nuclei	1939	60	65

08 Do women make their breakthroughs at the same age as men?

Yes, within the noise. The 27 breakthroughs by women in the data came at a median 37 (middle half 32 to 42.5); the 636 by men at 39. Women are 4.1% of the data, so their figures move with every new laureate.

Figure 7

Women and men: at what age the breakthrough came

Share of each sex's breakthroughs in each age band (percent of 27 by women, of 636 by men). The women's side is 27 people, so one person moves a band by 3.7 points.

Women27 breakthroughs; median 37AgeMen636 breakthroughs; median 39

0%60+1%

0%55-593%

4%50-547%

7%45-4912%

30%40-4421%

26%35-3922%

26%30-3422%

4%25-299%

4%Under 252%

1020300102030

Table 3

Every woman in the data, in the order of the breakthrough

Laureate	Field	Work year	Age then	Prize year	Age at prize
Marie Curie	Physics	1898	31	1903	36
Marie Curie	Chemistry	1898	31	1911	44
Irène Joliot-Curie	Chemistry	1934	37	1935	38
Gerty Cori	Medicine	1935	39	1947	51
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin	Chemistry	1945	35	1964	54
Barbara McClintock	Medicine	1948	46	1983	81
Maria Goeppert Mayer	Physics	1949	43	1963	57
Gertrude B. Elion	Medicine	1952	34	1988	70
Rita Levi-Montalcini	Medicine	1952	43	1986	77
Rosalyn Yalow	Medicine	1956	35	1977	56
Tu Youyou	Medicine	1972	42	2015	85
Elizabeth H. Blackburn	Medicine	1978	30	2009	61
Ada E. Yonath	Chemistry	1980	41	2009	70
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard	Medicine	1980	38	1995	53
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi	Medicine	1983	36	2008	61
Carol W. Greider	Medicine	1985	24	2009	48
Donna Strickland	Physics	1985	26	2018	59
Anne L’Huillier	Physics	1988	30	2023	65
Linda B. Buck	Medicine	1991	44	2004	57
Frances H. Arnold	Chemistry	1993	37	2018	62
Carolyn Bertozzi	Chemistry	1997	31	2022	56
Andrea Ghez	Physics	1998	33	2020	55
Mary E. Brunkow	Medicine	2001	40	2025	64
May-Britt Moser	Medicine	2005	42	2014	51
Katalin Karikó	Medicine	2005	50	2023	68
Emmanuelle Charpentier	Chemistry	2011	43	2020	52
Jennifer A. Doudna	Chemistry	2012	48	2020	56

09 How old were Newton, Darwin and Einstein at their breakthrough?

Choose a name to see the age at the breakthrough, the prize and the wait, with a sentence you can copy. Laureates are dated by the prize-winning work; the historical geniuses by their best-known work in Wikidata ^[5].

Figure 8

Age at the breakthrough by year of birth, from Copernicus to the 2026 laureates

Each dot is one person: the year of birth across, the age at the breakthrough up. 795 people.

Laureates in physics, chemistry, medicine (prize-winning work)Historical geniuses of Cox 1926 (best-known work)

Age at the breakthrough

1030507090

Nicolaus CopernicusBlaise PascalIsaac NewtonCharles Darwin

145015501650175018501950

Year of birth

Two different measures sit on one chart: laureates are dated by the prize-winning paper, everyone else by the best-known work. A link over time, not a cause.

Table 4

How old were they? Famous minds and the year of their breakthrough

Person	Breakthrough	Year	Age then	Age at prize (year)
Leonardo da Vinci	Vitruvian Man	1490	38	–
Michelangelo	David	1504	29	–
William Shakespeare	Hamlet	1602	38	–
Blaise Pascal	Pascal’s calculator	1642	19	–
Isaac Newton	Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica	1687	44	–
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz	Théodicée	1710	64	–
Voltaire	Candide	1759	65	–
Immanuel Kant	Critique of Pure Reason	1781	57	–
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart	The Magic Flute	1791	35	–
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe	Faust	1808	59	–
Ludwig van Beethoven	Symphony No. 9	1826	56	–
Charles Darwin	On the Origin of Species	1859	50	–
Victor Hugo	Les Misérables	1862	60	–
Marie Curie	research on radioactivity	1898	31	36 (1903)
Max Planck	energy quanta	1901	43	60 (1918)
Ernest Rutherford	the disintegration of the elements	1902	31	37 (1908)
Albert Einstein	the law of the photoelectric effect	1905	26	42 (1921)
Peyton Rous	tumour-inducing viruses	1910	31	87 (1966)
Lawrence Bragg	crystal structure by X-rays	1913	23	25 (1915)
Niels Bohr	the structure of atoms	1913	28	37 (1922)
Paul A.M. Dirac	new forms of atomic theory (the electron equation)	1925	23	31 (1933)
Werner Heisenberg	the creation of quantum mechanics	1925	24	31 (1932)
Erwin Schrödinger	new forms of atomic theory (wave mechanics)	1926	39	46 (1933)
Linus Pauling	the nature of the chemical bond	1928	27	53 (1954)
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar	the structure and evolution of the stars	1931	21	73 (1983)
Enrico Fermi	new radioactive elements made by neutrons	1934	33	37 (1938)
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin	structures of biochemical substances by X-rays	1945	35	54 (1964)
Frederick Sanger	the structure of insulin	1945	27	40 (1958)
Barbara McClintock	mobile genetic elements	1948	46	81 (1983)
Richard P. Feynman	quantum electrodynamics	1948	30	47 (1965)
William B. Shockley	the transistor effect	1949	39	46 (1956)
Francis Crick	the molecular structure of DNA	1953	37	46 (1962)
James Watson	the molecular structure of DNA	1953	25	34 (1962)
Peter Higgs	the mechanism behind the mass of particles	1964	35	84 (2013)
Frederick Sanger	DNA sequencing	1965	47	62 (1980)
Roger Penrose	black hole formation in general relativity	1965	34	89 (2020)
Arthur Ashkin	optical tweezers	1970	48	96 (2018)
John B. Goodenough	lithium-ion batteries	1980	58	97 (2019)
Geoffrey Hinton	machine learning with artificial neural networks	1983	36	77 (2024)
Donna Strickland	ultra-short, high-intensity laser pulses	1985	26	59 (2018)
Andrea Ghez	the black hole at the centre of our galaxy	1998	33	55 (2020)
Karl Deisseroth	light-gated ion channels and optogenetics	2005	34	55 (2026)
Katalin Karikó	the base modifications behind mRNA vaccines	2005	50	68 (2023)
Emmanuelle Charpentier	CRISPR genome editing	2011	43	52 (2020)
Jennifer A. Doudna	CRISPR genome editing	2012	48	56 (2020)
Demis Hassabis	protein structure prediction	2021	45	48 (2024)

10 Does the breakthrough age match the age when the brain is sharpest?

No. In our peak brain age study of 756,948 adults, overall test performance peaked at 25, pattern reasoning at 29 and math reasoning at 36 ^[8]. The median prize-winning breakthrough came at 39, after all three. A breakthrough needs more than speed: years of training, a field ready for the idea and the work itself. Jones and Weinberg tie the later breakthroughs to the growing body of knowledge a scientist must master first ^[7].

The age at the prize itself, prize by prize and for 21 top science prizes, is in our study of the universities with the most prize winners ^[9]; the IQ estimates behind Cox’s geniuses are in the IQ of 301 historical geniuses ^[6].

11 How old were the laureates of 2017-2026?

Li et al. end in 2016, so we dated the 76 laureates since then ourselves, from the prize committees’ scientific background documents ^[3]. Their median age at the work was 40 and at the prize 72.

Table 5

The laureates of 2017-2026: age at the work and at the prize

Laureate (field)	Prize	Work year	Age then	Age at prize	Wait
Henri B. Kagan (Chemistry)	2026	1986	56	96	40
Kenso Soai (Chemistry)	2026	1990	40	76	36
Francis Halzen (Physics)	2026	1988	44	82	38
Georg Nagel (Medicine)	2026	2002	49	73	24
Karl Deisseroth (Medicine)	2026	2005	34	55	21
Peter Hegemann (Medicine)	2026	1991	37	72	35
Omar M. Yaghi (Chemistry)	2025	1995	30	60	30
Richard Robson (Chemistry)	2025	1989	52	88	36
Susumu Kitagawa (Chemistry)	2025	1992	41	74	33
John Clarke (Physics)	2025	1984	42	83	41
John M. Martinis (Physics)	2025	1984	26	67	41
Michel H. Devoret (Physics)	2025	1984	31	72	41
Fred Ramsdell (Medicine)	2025	2001	41	65	24
Mary E. Brunkow (Medicine)	2025	2001	40	64	24
Shimon Sakaguchi (Medicine)	2025	1995	44	74	30
David Baker (Chemistry)	2024	2003	41	62	21
Demis Hassabis (Chemistry)	2024	2021	45	48	3
John Jumper (Chemistry)	2024	2021	36	39	3
Geoffrey Hinton (Physics)	2024	1983	36	77	41
John J. Hopfield (Physics)	2024	1982	49	91	42
Gary Ruvkun (Medicine)	2024	1993	41	72	31
Victor Ambros (Medicine)	2024	1993	40	71	31
Aleksey Yekimov (Chemistry)	2023	1980	35	78	43
Louis Brus (Chemistry)	2023	1983	40	80	40
Moungi Bawendi (Chemistry)	2023	1993	32	62	30
Anne L’Huillier (Physics)	2023	1988	30	65	35
Ferenc Krausz (Physics)	2023	1997	35	61	26
Pierre Agostini (Physics)	2023	1994	53	82	29
Drew Weissman (Medicine)	2023	2005	46	64	18
Katalin Karikó (Medicine)	2023	2005	50	68	18
Carolyn Bertozzi (Chemistry)	2022	1997	31	56	25
K. Barry Sharpless (Chemistry)	2022	1999	58	81	23
Morten Meldal (Chemistry)	2022	2001	47	68	21
Alain Aspect (Physics)	2022	1981	34	75	41
Anton Zeilinger (Physics)	2022	1997	52	77	25
John Clauser (Physics)	2022	1972	30	80	50
Svante Pääbo (Medicine)	2022	1997	42	67	25
Benjamin List (Chemistry)	2021	2000	32	53	21
David W.C. MacMillan (Chemistry)	2021	2000	32	53	21
Giorgio Parisi (Physics)	2021	1979	31	73	42
Klaus Hasselmann (Physics)	2021	1976	45	90	45
Syukuro Manabe (Physics)	2021	1964	33	90	57
Ardem Patapoutian (Medicine)	2021	2002	35	54	19
David Julius (Medicine)	2021	1997	42	66	24
Emmanuelle Charpentier (Chemistry)	2020	2011	43	52	9
Jennifer A. Doudna (Chemistry)	2020	2012	48	56	8
Andrea Ghez (Physics)	2020	1998	33	55	22
Reinhard Genzel (Physics)	2020	1996	44	68	24
Roger Penrose (Physics)	2020	1965	34	89	55
Charles M. Rice (Medicine)	2020	1996	44	68	24
Harvey J. Alter (Medicine)	2020	1972	37	85	48
Michael Houghton (Medicine)	2020	1989	40	71	31
Akira Yoshino (Chemistry)	2019	1985	37	71	34
John B. Goodenough (Chemistry)	2019	1980	58	97	39
M. Stanley Whittingham (Chemistry)	2019	1974	33	78	45
Didier Queloz (Physics)	2019	1995	29	53	24
James Peebles (Physics)	2019	1965	30	84	54
Michel Mayor (Physics)	2019	1995	53	77	24
Gregg L. Semenza (Medicine)	2019	1989	33	63	30
Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe (Medicine)	2019	1991	37	65	28
William G. Kaelin Jr (Medicine)	2019	1995	38	62	24
Frances H. Arnold (Chemistry)	2018	1993	37	62	25
George P. Smith (Chemistry)	2018	1985	44	77	33
Sir Gregory P. Winter (Chemistry)	2018	1990	39	67	28
Arthur Ashkin (Physics)	2018	1970	48	96	48
Donna Strickland (Physics)	2018	1985	26	59	33
Gérard Mourou (Physics)	2018	1985	41	74	33
James P. Allison (Medicine)	2018	1996	48	70	22
Tasuku Honjo (Medicine)	2018	1992	50	76	26
Jacques Dubochet (Chemistry)	2017	1981	39	75	36
Joachim Frank (Chemistry)	2017	1975	35	77	42
Richard Henderson (Chemistry)	2017	1975	30	72	42
Rainer Weiss (Physics)	2017	1972	40	85	45
Jeffrey C. Hall (Medicine)	2017	1984	39	72	33
Michael Rosbash (Medicine)	2017	1984	40	73	33
Michael W. Young (Medicine)	2017	1984	35	68	33

12 How we dated each breakthrough

1. 01

   List the laureates

   Every laureate in physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine, 1901-2026, with birth date, sex and prize year, from the Nobel Prize API ^[2]: 668 prizes to 664 people.

2. 02

   Date the prize-winning work, 1901-2016

   Li, Yin, Fortunato and Wang (2019) identified the prize-winning papers of 545 laureates from the references of their Nobel lectures and the prize records ^[1]. We take the year of each laureate’s earliest prize-winning paper as the year of the breakthrough. Two rows were wrong in their file: Wilhelm Wien’s 1893 displacement law is dated 1983, corrected from his Nobel biography ^[4]; Hans Fischer was given Emil Fischer’s 1894 paper, so he is left out.

3. 03

   Date the rest by hand

   For the laureates of 2017-2026 and the early laureates Li et al. lack, we read the prize committee’s scientific background document or the Nobel lecture and took the year of the earliest key paper the committee cites by that laureate ^[3]. Each year in the CSV carries its document and a quote.

4. 04

   Check the names we quote

   We checked 109 of Li et al.’s years against the Nobel lectures, presentation speeches and biographies on nobelprize.org: every laureate this page names, the youngest, the oldest, the longest waits, every woman and a random sample of 30. In the random sample 18 of 30 matched (within a year), 11 differed and 1 could not be settled; of the 11 that differed, 10 started earlier than Li et al.’s paper (by a median 6 years), because Li et al. picked a later paper of the same prize work. The sample’s median age moved from 36.5 to 35. Every year that differed was replaced by the checked one (31 in all) and the CSV notes the change; the ages of laureates we did not check may run a year or two high.

5. 05

   Add the historical geniuses

   For the people in Catharine Cox’s 1926 study ^[6] we found each person in Wikidata by name and birth year, took their “notable work” with its publication date or, failing that, its creation date, kept only works dated to the year, after age 10 and before death, and chose the one with the most Wikipedia language editions ^[5]. We tried the same for the mathematics and Turing Award winners in our prize-winner data ^[9], but Wikidata dates a notable work for only 2 of 139 mathematicians and 22 of 79 computer scientists, too few to use.

6. 06

   Count

   Medians with a 95% interval from order statistics (it assumes no particular shape of the ages), shares at 40 and 50 or older, and the wait from work to prize. One script computes every number on this page from the files above, and the CSV holds every row it used.