Hot streaks are the real deal

Nearly everybody has enjoyed a period of their lives when they were at their best. Whether in gambling, love, business, playing the stock market, or in the arts or sciences, there is a time when a person’s performance is far better than his or her previous or subsequent performance.

Psychologists call these wonderful episodes ‘‘hot streaks’’. If you or your team win three or more games in succession, these too are known as hot streaks, or in basketball as ‘‘hot hands’’.

In last month’s Nature journal, Lu Liu – an American software engineer – along with four of her colleagues reported on a survey of hot streaks in artistic, cultural and scientific careers.

Her team compiled a database of more than 6000 movie directors, 3480 artists’ careers, and the careers of 20,000 scientists.

Liu and colleagues found that winning streaks are real – they are ‘‘ubiquitous across diverse domains’’ and ‘‘have a high degree of temporal regularity’’.

Film directors are on top of their game for about five years.

To judge by their sales at auctions, the team found that artists’ hot streaks last about six years, and that hot streaks can happen at any age.

In the scientific world, mathematicians shine as youngsters.

Nobel Prizes usually go to physicists for work done in their 20s, to medical researchers for work in their early 30s and to biologists for research in later life.

Acclaimed French poet Arthur Rimbaud wrote his last poem at 21 before spending the rest of his life as a merchant and arms dealer in Africa.

In his 20s, American Tom Lehrer composed dozens of satirical songs, which have endured from the 1950s to this day.

He spent the rest of his life teaching maths in California.

New Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr had his hot streak at 31 when he rewrote Einstein’s relativity equations.

He spent the rest of his life teaching maths in Christchurch and playing bridge. These are not bad things.

So, cast your mind back. When were you in top form in your job, your hobby, in business, sports, gambling, in your family, or in love?

Or perhaps you have yet to reach your prime.

Film directors are on top of their game for about five years. Artists’ hot streaks last about six years.