, 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. |
Tuberculosis Sufferer Niels Henrik AbelDeveloped group theory, proved the binomial theorem, and did important work in quintic equations and elliptic functions prior to his death at age 26. |
Child of Japanese and Korean immigrants Sho YanoEarned PhD in biology at age 18 while attending medical school, from which he received an MD at age 21. |
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