michael_nielsen

@odysseanproject By AG here I just mean "people who are way ahead of the curve" at some point. (I.e., I used it as a Twitter shortcut).

@odysseanproject I just find it interesting that such people often v. influential when young, & seem like throwbacks as they age.

@odysseanproject In other words, in their youth they're ahead of society. When older, they fall behind. But some escape this.

@IssyFlamel @odysseanproject That may be part of it. The piece I was thinking about was the idea of different speeds of culture.

@IssyFlamel @odysseanproject So someone just starting out may pick an area ahead of culture, do great work, have that work assimilated,...

@IssyFlamel @odysseanproject but continue to work away, dwelling as culture passes them by.

@IssyFlamel @odysseanproject (Similar to relationship between phase velocity and group velocity.)

@IssyFlamel @odysseanproject To pick a concrete example, this happened to some extent with exactly solveable models and the Yang-Baxter eqtn