We love to cite mathematical prodigies who proved superb results at a very young age, and we do so with immense admiration. Évariste Galois, of course (see our special issue 82, 2022), but also Blaise Pascal, Alexis Clairaut and others.
Some discovered they were mathematicians after studying or training in an entirely different field. This was true of d'Alembert, who published in mathematics after studying medicine, and of Leibniz, who began his work in mathematics after meeting Huygens in Paris. Yet by the age of 24, the former had already entered the Académie des sciences, following the submission of several scientific papers, and the latter began developing the theory of integration by the age of 26. Both went on to pursue research later in life.
Rarer still are the scholars who produced their first work at an age that, if not advanced, had at least passed forty — the Church's canonical age. Here are a few of them, whose names are all familiar to us.
Cardano, medicine and equations
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