Can you really say that unless you switched fields multiple times? Of course you'll pick up on math and physics faster in high school than in college or postgrad, but that's because the problems get way, way harder as you progress. I've found that even in my late 30s I can still easily pick up new skills outside my field of expertise as long as I start with the basics that could also be picked up by a high-schooler. I started learning a new language last year and thanks to modern study apps, I actually find it easier today. Of course it will still take a long time to become an expert, but I'm not sure it would need more total hours than if I had started 20 years ago. It just gets more difficult to allocate the necessary hours for learning.

I don't know - i'm 33 ~ now - recently with AI learning is much easier - don't get me wrong I definitely won't say that the brain does not slow down - but I'd definitely argue that we have advantages over kids - be it discipline, knowing how to learn ; and stuff like that - for example let's take coq which is I suppose one of the hardest thing we can learn - you can decompose it in ways myself as a kid or as a 20yo wouldn't even be able to. What I mean is that there is a lot of complexities or stuff i would get stuck upon that I just fly over today and know I'm alright - much better ability to focus in a sense

Gentoo is what really made Linux click for me, too. I'm still very, very glad for that and remain a loyal user to this day!

Although I've had to restrict it to the 2 desktop machines. Maybe I should give it a shot again on the laptops, now that binary packages are universally available...

I had to learn and relearn a lot at 30-31. It was good. But it was not good at 27 for example. Learning new is habit. Hard to start, bur goes fast.

I'm learning better now the older I get. More good'erer.

Don't get hug up on "invented". Ruth Asawa registered for (1956) and received US patent 185,504 on June 16, 1959 at the suggestion of her professor, Buckminster Fuller.

https://theartian.com/ruth-asawa-patent-collaboration/

i hear he didn't even produce the paper himself

Being able to hold 10x the weight of paper doesn't sound so impressive that it would require an astrophysicist to invent it.

I was more ready to accept the headline if it had been invented by the kid.

Are you telling me you can't roll up 10 origami papers and stand them on a reasonably stable origami pattern?

He literally did fold all the folds himself. He didn't even get an LLM to reskin VS Code for him and apply to Y Combinator.

"Miura" is the name of the astrophysicist. "Ori" (折り) just means "fold", as in "origami" = "fold+paper".

> isn't this more a trait of autism than anything else?

No. It’s a sign of drive and discipline.

The latter, specifically the focus element, overlaps with autism. But more broadly it does not. (There are a lot of impressive teenagers applying themselves diligently to impressive ends. Most of them are not on the spectrum, though I suspect mild autism is slightly over-represented in that set.)

And this is all you can come up with this story?

Not all autism presents with intense narrow interests, and not all expressions of intense narrow interest are autism.

Would you say the same for a teenage sports prodigy?

You're assuming that autism is always going to be a disadvantage. In fact, the obsessive focus mirrors scientific practice. Good luck to him, I respect him.