, by
Dan Greenburg
Former Community College Student Craig VenterDeveloped shotgun gene sequencing technique and founded Celera Genomics, a private company that raced ahead of the government-funded Human Genome Project. |
Encyclopedia Americana staff writer Norbert WienerReceived Ph.D. from Harvard at age 18, subsequently founded field of communication science/cybernetics. |
Stoic Philosopher Marcus AureliusRuled the entire world as it was known in his day; was the only Roman Emperor to refrain from disgracing himself. |
University Dropout Carl Friedrich GaussBy the age of 21, he had constructed a regular 17-gon by ruler and compasses, the most major advance in this field since the time of the Greeks. Subsequently developed method of least squares, normal probability distribution, Fast Fourier Transform, and a non-Euclidean geometry. |
Programmed by Eve Astrid Andersson and Philip Greenspun back in the mid-1990s. If you're a nerd, you might find the source code useful.
Original Inspiration: How to Make Yourself Miserable