QuoteOriginally posted by: doreillyQuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoePeople are at their most creative and innovative before they hit 40. Sad but very very true.So tJ if you do not contribute an interesting post before you are 40 we should not expect one after that.Touche.

Antoher way of looking at it being that any given person only has so much innovation in them, so tend to fire off their idea young.

To make innovation and great discovery one has to be talanted and lucky. Heisenberg and Dirac were 25-26 years old. They were lucky because there was a time of development of Quantum Mechanics. I just read words of Dirac about improtence of time, if I translate back to English it looks like: "It was good time in physics, even second class physicists could publish first class paper. Today first class physicists can not publish a second class paper".There was time of Quantum Mechanics and there were young talanted people. Do not forget that Schroedinger was 43 years old when he wrote his equation. I also do not remember that Plank was "young brilliant quant from tier bank" when he wrote about quants.

Imerli, I think you have forgotten that Schrodinger was 38 or 39 when he first published his eponymous equation, not 43. Not that it matters, of course.

1) What age were Samuelson, Merton, Black, Hull etc when they did their best work2) If we need to make "world class" discoveries every day, then age maybe a factor, but we pretty much do what we did yesterday, except we hopefully we do not make the same mistakes

QuoteOriginally posted by: doreilly2) If we need to make "world class" discoveries every day, then age maybe a factor, but we pretty much do what we did yesterday, except we hopefully we do not make the same mistakesI wonder how many banks hiring "boy-wonder" 25 year olds are surprised when they don't actually come up with any Earth-shattering new finance theories? As you said, the vast majority of them will be doing the same as they did the day before, but I guess it won't win any of them a Nobel prize.

QuoteOriginally posted by: doreilly1) What age were Samuelson, Merton, Black, Hull etc when they did their best work{/q]Once again, great staffs are done by very talanted people at age 25-35. Statistics prove it. I agree.On the other hand, do not forget that most of these guys got not only PhD+1 or 2 papers, but they already made something valuable in science when they were 25-30.I do not think that 90% of fresh PhD quants have at leats one paper with 50+ citations (50 citations is not too much; this is nothing in fact).So, why banks expect great discoveries from such 25-30 years young guys, if they failed in their own field? Quote 2) If we need to make "world class" discoveries every day, then age maybe a factor, but we pretty much do what we did yesterday, except we hopefully we do not make the same mistakesThis is right. I agree. More than 90% of quants are hired to work hard and make calculations, not make discoveries. My point here is that any experienced 40 years old personwho spent his life in physics doing numerical calculations and programming can beat most fresh PhDs.That's all. There can be other reasons why banks want young guys. Helth problems, communication problems and so on.

QuoteOriginally posted by: RealIllusionImerli, I think you have forgotten that Schrodinger was 38 or 39 when he first published his eponymous equation, not 43. Not that it matters, of course.I am not an expert in physiology or psychology. So, I did not know that there is big difference between 39 years old and 41 or 43 years old people. From my simple experience the spread even between 25 years oldpoeple can be +-5 yeears. Someone looks, feels thinks like 20, someone like 30. Only difference I see between 39 and 41 or 43 is that 39<40 and 41 and 43 > 40.It turns out that 40 has some magic meanning. It is nice topic to inevstigate influence of decimal system on the ability do calculate price of options and run MC for BGM.Probably computers crash if enter button is pressed by 41 years old guy. Another topic of inevstigation: influence of decimal system on electronics. If we had hexadecimal system then what, there would be huge difference between 31 and 33 years old guys?

Not wanting to appear politically correct or anything, but there used to be such a thing as the generation gap. A 40 something may not feel all that comfortable working alongside a room full of twenty somethings, unless of course he was their manager. Good point TJ.

QuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeNot wanting to appear politically correct or anything, but there used to be such a thing as the generation gap. A 40 something may not feel all that comfortable working alongside a room full of twenty somethings, unless of course he was their manager. Good point TJ.That is just pure bollocks. In every sector, apart from finance it seems, people of all ages work together. If they don't like it, they leave and find another position. But this idea that 40-somethings can't possibly work with people of younger age-group does make it seem as if the people working in financial companies/IBs/etc are a most restricted group with very little ability to adapt to a situation outside their comfort zone.I suspect that the real reason is not that people of different ages cannot work with each other, but is in reality age-discrimination, however much the managers and HR departments (who seem to condone it) might disagree.

QuoteOriginally posted by: migalleyQuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeNot wanting to appear politically correct or anything, but there used to be such a thing as the generation gap. A 40 something may not feel all that comfortable working alongside a room full of twenty somethings, unless of course he was their manager. Good point TJ.That is just pure bollocks. In every sector, apart from finance it seems, people of all ages work together. If they don't like it, they leave and find another position. But this idea that 40-somethings can't possibly work with people of younger age-group does make it seem as if the people working in financial companies/IBs/etc are a most restricted group with very little ability to adapt to a situation outside their comfort zone.I suspect that the real reason is not that people of different ages cannot work with each other, but is in reality age-discrimination, however much the managers and HR departments (who seem to condone it) might disagree.Ageism, like islamaphobia is a fact of life. Live with it. Everyone else does.

QuoteOriginally posted by: migalleyQuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeNot wanting to appear politically correct or anything, but there used to be such a thing as the generation gap. A 40 something may not feel all that comfortable working alongside a room full of twenty somethings, unless of course he was their manager. Good point TJ.That is just pure bollocks. In every sector, apart from finance it seems, people of all ages work together. If they don't like it, they leave and find another position. But this idea that 40-somethings can't possibly work with people of younger age-group does make it seem as if the people working in financial companies/IBs/etc are a most restricted group with very little ability to adapt to a situation outside their comfort zone.I suspect that the real reason is not that people of different ages cannot work with each other, but is in reality age-discrimination, however much the managers and HR departments (who seem to condone it) might disagree.It is not an age-discrimination. Please do not mix oppinion of managment of the banks and oppinion of ordinary hard working quants.Ordinary quants are average and below average level fresh PhD's, who usually have not done anything in Physics or Math, got job in some bank and think that they are very smart.Oppinion of such a people really seems like age-discrimination.I am sorry, if I am insulting somebody, I know some brilliant phisicists in this field, but usually they are exceptions.I have never had any problem to work with people with a different age in science. I worked with 70 yeras old classics when I was 25, I am working with 25 yeras old guys right now. Unfortunately quant job is not a science. Reading last post of TraderJoe I have a feeling thay have some kind of Beauty Pageant of 25 years old guys over there. I am laughing reading the posts when guys mention ages of Black, Scholes and other gurus in finance. Men, you overestimate youself. How you dare to compare yourself to Black , Scholes or Deman, if you were unsuccesfull in your area and have not published more then 2 unknown papers?These people even do not understand that they are not hired to write new equations. Banks have Derman, Joshi, Rebonato and others to write equations. Quants have to do routine calculations. That's all. On the other hand, all this discussion shows very well why banks are not willing to hire 40 years old scientists. Usually people in the managment are much smarter (frequently former good and brilliant scientists)and they understand very well what they are doing. They have a couple of smart guys to do smart job. This is more than enough. If 40 years old phisicist proves that he is Rebonato or Joshi (what is impossible), they will hire him immediately. For the routine calculations they can find somebody simpler than 40 years old physics professor.So, there is no age-discrimination.

QuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeQuoteOriginally posted by: migalleyQuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeNot wanting to appear politically correct or anything, but there used to be such a thing as the generation gap. A 40 something may not feel all that comfortable working alongside a room full of twenty somethings, unless of course he was their manager. Good point TJ.That is just pure bollocks. In every sector, apart from finance it seems, people of all ages work together. If they don't like it, they leave and find another position. But this idea that 40-somethings can't possibly work with people of younger age-group does make it seem as if the people working in financial companies/IBs/etc are a most restricted group with very little ability to adapt to a situation outside their comfort zone.I suspect that the real reason is not that people of different ages cannot work with each other, but is in reality age-discrimination, however much the managers and HR departments (who seem to condone it) might disagree.Ageism, like islamaphobia is a fact of life. Live with it. Everyone else does.I do live with it. I also point it out when I see it happen. There is no need to lie down meekly and be fucked up the arse when you see a situation which you think is wrong taking place.Islamaphobia, Commie-phobia and Kiwi-phobia don't bother me, but racism and ageism do, so of course I will point them out. Doesn't mean I crumple up in a heap and can't function because they occur.

QuoteOriginally posted by: migalleyQuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeQuoteOriginally posted by: migalleyQuoteOriginally posted by: TraderJoeNot wanting to appear politically correct or anything, but there used to be such a thing as the generation gap. A 40 something may not feel all that comfortable working alongside a room full of twenty somethings, unless of course he was their manager. Good point TJ.That is just pure bollocks. In every sector, apart from finance it seems, people of all ages work together. If they don't like it, they leave and find another position. But this idea that 40-somethings can't possibly work with people of younger age-group does make it seem as if the people working in financial companies/IBs/etc are a most restricted group with very little ability to adapt to a situation outside their comfort zone.I suspect that the real reason is not that people of different ages cannot work with each other, but is in reality age-discrimination, however much the managers and HR departments (who seem to condone it) might disagree.Ageism, like islamaphobia is a fact of life. Live with it. Everyone else does.I do live with it. I also point it out when I see it happen. There is no need to lie down meekly and be fucked up the arse when you see a situation which you think is wrong taking place.Islamaphobia, Commie-phobia and Kiwi-phobia don't bother me, but racism and ageism do, so of course I will point them out. Doesn't mean I crumple up in a heap and can't function because they occur.This is good to know.