[didibus]

I remember reading some article about why there are no adult prodigy, only child prodigy.

It went something like, the reason there are only child prodigy, and no adult prodigy, is because other kids eventually catch up. And that child prodigies are basically just children that are ahead compared to other kids of the same age.

It looked at the data, and showed that once adult, child prodigies just distribute themselves similarly accross all levels of accomplishments, success and failures as any other adult.

It also said that, once adult, the difference between the best, second best, third best, and all following is much less pronounced, and therefore no one looks so far superior to anyone else who had similar training, opportunity, luck, etc.

Whereas with children, the difference is stark, so people take notice, and that's where the "prodigy" is born.

I can't remember the source, so take it all with a grain of salt, but I always thought it was an interesting article, and a good question, where are all the adult prodigies?

Edit: Also, I vaguely remember it saying that the data shows a higher level of depression and general less happiness in now adult child prodigees, which the article hypothesized might be either from the loss of "being special", or from the weird childhood that "being special" created.

[ohashi]

As a counterpoint, if we look at the world of sports. I follow hockey quite closely. In hockey the term generational talent gets thrown around and assigned to kids, sometimes as young as 13-14. There is even an official recognition in the Canadian Major Junior system at 15 with "Exceptional Player Status" where a 15 year old is given eligibility to play in the league (normally 16+).

Some of these prodigies do level out, like you say. Often on account of their size being caught up to. But some truly remain remarkable into adulthood and actually hit that Generational talent level (Connor McDavid for instance). There's only been a handful of kids granted this status in the past 20 years (~7). The oldest 3, two turned into superstars (Tavares/Ekblad) and McDavid is generational, simply the best player in the world, full stop. The next is a bust, Sean Day, who at 15 was 6'2 when drafted into the juniors. That would be your everyone catches up example. The others are still too young to say, one is 22 and just beginning (but not looking like a superstar), one was just drafted this summer and likely will play his first game for Seattle this season. Another is the projected 1st overall pick next summer.

But there are definitely the handful of prodigies that pan out at least in the sports world and instead of being called a prodigy - they earn themselves superstardom or get talked about as GOATs (greatest of all time, for the unfamiliar).

If we also look at who are in the generational talent conversation (go in reverse), in the past 20 years all the players who might be mentioned (Crosby, Ovechkin, McDavid) were definitely prodigies as well. So much so that the next generation of prodigies is compared to them, McDavid being called the next coming of Crosby. We may see the next coming of Ovechkin in a young russian player named Matvei Michkov who has been a prodigy in the russian league. Sadly, we may never find out given the political situation and Russia seems more intent on keeping home grown talent in Russia more and more.

Maybe the issue isn't prodigies disappear, it's that in many fields we don't compete like children often do and get recognition? None of my friends have a GPA at work or a spelling bee to win. If all careers were like sports, maybe we would continue to recognize prodigies into adulthood?

[towaway15463]

Wouldn’t an “adult prodigy” be referred to as a genius? Surely you believe there are people who are far more accomplished than 99.999% of the population that could be considered as such.

[didibus]

Are there adult geniuses? I'm not sure either. Like I said, I can't remember the source, so now I can't validate anything, but I don't really ever hear of adult geniuses (if you prefer to call them that).

> Surely you believe there are people who are far more accomplished than 99.999% of the population that could be considered as such

This will obviously be a personal interpretation. One could consider the number 1 chess player an adult genius, but as I said, the article discussed that adults are no longer seen as such because the gap between the best and second best and everyone thereafter of similar training and experience is much smaller, so it no longer appears incredible, and people can very well imagine that someone else will soon come along and be even better than they are.

So it's not that there isn't ever one person arguably better at something than everyone else, but that they don't appear to be so due to a genius/prodigy gene, and they're no longer that much better that it seems impossible for anyone else to beat them ever.

Similarly, you'd expect that the best adults would likely have all been child prodigies no? And this appeared to be false based on my memory of that article.

[towaway15463]

I think you’d have to answer what the difference is between that group of chess masters and the rest of the population. Could you pick any random adult person off the street and train them to compete and win against the best of the best? Would their training take as long or longer than the current chess masters? My gut feeling is that the small differences between high performing people are evident of a population of geniuses rather than evidence against genius being a thing. If we were talking about athletic performance instead then I think it would be more evident, there are natural athletes who have some combination of physiological traits that allow them to perform better than others with the same training.

[GBond]

A reason why I browse HN is to learn about adult prodigy projects