Yes and no. Einstein once made the statement “If a person hasn’t made their great contribution to science by age 30, he will never do so.”
Learning rates and scientific creativity peaks pretty young, between the late teens and late 20s. Nobel prize winners tend to have their most important breakthroughs around the time in their lives that top athletes peak and the pattern follows its way down to other intellectual endeavors vs physical ones. This is particularly true for the ability to grasp and retain mathematical concepts. If, by age 30, you have not been able to master anything beyond calculus, you likely never will. It is just as important for scientists and to a lesser extent, engineers, to spend their prime years in academia while their brains are peaking as it is for athletes to spend that time training.
