It's not the age, it's the marital status that affects the productivity the most.

It certainly can't hurt to not be distracted -- Erdos was famously asexual, and it seemed to have turned out well for him! [1][2]

[1] http://www.jrhenry.net/johnrhenry/erdos.htm [2] http://www.nndb.com/people/401/000032305/

Zhang is married.

I find myself downright inspired as a family man.

You should feel depressed instead. In men, creativity is destroyed by marriage http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2003/07/11/900147.htm

I'm very appreciative of the the statistical concept of outliers.

As Hume would point out, is is not ought.

Were you being sarcastic? I've heard this before and it's usually considered that once someone gets married/has a family of their own, they simply will have to devote much less time to their profession/'hobbies' (like math) because of time constraints, and then they just start degrading due to lack of practice etc.

One of the times it was specifically brought up in reference to a known mathematician. The takeaway being that getting in a relationship, or even married, automatically disqualifies you from achieving anything of great importance in the future....made me pretty sad that it's such a common pattern of thought.

I'm not being sarcastic. Marriage and family gave me reason and impetus to get my crap together and focus. I am easily distracted by sophomoric pursuits--now I choose hobbies and what not that I can share with the kids. One we really enjoy is kite building.

But then, I started my family early. I didn't have much of an established pattern of productivity before. So my baseline comparison may be way off.

Are you a mathematician?

Economist.