I’m looking to compile a list of notable achievements by people in their twenties (or younger.) I’d like to keep these quite major, so that the person’s name and what they did would be immediately recognisable to most people straight away.
If possible, I’d also like to focus on people who made a positive difference to the world around them (eg developed vaccines or invented machines) rather than those who were successful to their own ends in business, sports etc.
thanks in advance
T
James Watson was almost 25 when, in 1953, he co-authored the paper solving the structure of DNA.
I know you said you wanted someone not in sports. But, how about someone like Jackie Robinson or Tiger Woods? Both men changed a lot more than sports.
Mozart died at the age of 35.
You may want to take a look at Wikipedia’s list of child prodigies.
If I’m not mistaken, Einstein published the four Annus Mirabilis papers in 1905 when he was 25 or 26.
Alexander the Great?
Hank Williams died at age 29.
I hate all of those people.
Philo Farnsworth came up with the concept for electronic television when he was 14, and had a working prototype by the time he was 21 (1927). Only in the past few years has his invention given way to newer technologies (LCD, Plasma) for the purpose of watching TV.
Beatles, Led Zeppelin…
Evariste Galois , well-known mathematician and political activist on his spare time. Killed at the ripe age of 20 in a duel (allegedly, he wrote a last significant mathematics paper the night before the duel).
Karl Gauss’ doctoral thesis, at the age of 22, proving the fundamental theorem of algebra.
Less well known the the general public, but equally important to physics, is James Clerk Maxwell
W. L. Bragg was awarded the Nobel Prize at age 25 (or 26) for work he did with his father. Everyone assumed the younger Bragg was just the assistant. Not in the case of the Nobel Work!
Henry Moseley discovered the physical meaning of Medeleev’s atomic number. Moseley was killed at Gallipoli at age 27.
Heinrich Hertz was just 30 when he published a crucial paper on electromagnetic radiation (proving Clerk-Maxwell’s work) and the photoelectric effect (the explanation of which won Einstein his one Nobel Prize). Hertz died at age 36. His name is used at the unit of frequency of electromagnetic radiation - when you see Hz as you tune your radio that’s him. (Does anyone tune radios anymore? Tell me before you get off of my lawn.)
Feynman as no slouch as a kid, either.
Bill Gates founded Microsoft when he was 21.
And how could I have forgotten Fermi? The man is all over several distinct areas of physics: Atomic, Nuclear, Solid State. And both in theory and experiment. JF brilliant, and by all reports the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet. Died of cancer at age 53, and if it had been at 103 it would still have been too soon.
From Wikepedia:
Audie Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military’s highest award for valor, along with 32 additional U.S. medals, five from France, and one from Belgium. This was before he was twenty!
Sergey Brin and Larry page were both 25 when they founded Google.
Sarah Chang, the violinist, recorded her first solo CD when she was 9 (though it wasn’t released until she was 12).
Itzhak Perlman first performed at Carnegie Hall when he was 18.
Yo-Yo Ma performed for president Kennedy when he was seven years old.
Mozart began composing around the age of five. Beethoven was fairly well into fame by his early twenties (though he never did get the chance to study under Mozart).
Mathematicians and to some extent scientists in general seem to have their biggest ideas or breakthroughs before they’re 25. It might take them a few years after that to do research, write papers, provide support, etc. but the idea or ideas that make them famous are usually thought up pretty early.
Einstein’s thought experiment of traveling at the same speed as a beam of light reportedly occurred to him when he was 16. His Annus Mirabilis Papers were published when he was 26. The Nobel Prize awarded in 1921, when he was 42, was considered long overdue. Almost all of his big influential work was done before age 40.
Newton’s theories in gravitation, optics, and calculus were mostly developed right after he finished college in his early twenties. His Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica was worked on over the next 15–20 years, but the core theories were worked out as an undergrad and expanded over that time.