<p>The discussion about people who “change the world” is not really appropriate for applying statistics. Obviously, if you include celebrities (e.g. actors, entertainers) and athletes, youth would rule. In academia or technology, while there are some young standouts (particularly in computer and web-based companies, because the filed is relatively young), in my experience in engineering many of the most productve engineers have come from the World War II generation, in which they went to war before beginning college. The class of 1950 was a huge college graduating class of male engineers (under the GI bill), including my grad school advisor at MIT. </p>
<p>I have not known that many people who truly had a major impact on the world. One was Sam Wu (<a href=“http://www.ur.umich.edu/9293/Nov02_92/8.htm)%5B/url%5D”>http://www.ur.umich.edu/9293/Nov02_92/8.htm)</a>, whom I met while I was also a faculty member at Michigan. Sam finished college and then under China’s “cultural revolution” worked on railroads for 9 years before coming to the US in the 1950’s and THEN (at about age 30) began his undergraduate and graduate studies in mechanical engineering at Wisconsin. Although he started his formal engineering education very late, he produced 113 PhD students during his career and it has been estimated that about 1/4 of all manufacturing engineering faculty in the US were either his students or students of his former PhD students. This is just one example, but world changers have many different backgrounds. Not all, like Gauss or Mozart, are child prodigies or even begin their success at a young age.</p>