You can get access to people at age 12 that you wouldn't get in a million years at age 20.
If you show interest in people’s work, especially if you have questions, corrections, etc. that demonstrate that you are engaging with it seriously, even “famous” people are often happy to respond (but people certainly also often don’t respond to cold emails, for a wide variety of reasons).
I've seen a number of people rag on him, espousing that he's got nothing else to do (they may well be right) but it makes me respect the guy even more to know that he's replying to emails, even when they're dumb, instead of watching TV or browsing Twitter. He's a real consummate professional, even when the people around him aren't.
Can confirm. In 1990, I managed to send him a letter from a borrowed Internet account (I didn't have an email address at the time.) He tracked me down and telephoned me(!!), I still remember his friendly demeanor, and at the end of the conversation he said "Happy hacking!".
I am very good at asking stupid questions. Thankfully, my teammates are patient with me.
Can you imagine wasting the time of one of the brilliant minds of our times and it turns out to be user error?
I would say try to sleep on a problem before reaching out for help if time permits. Probably isn't good for business but it is good for my personal development.
> I am very good at asking stupid questions. Thankfully, my teammates are patient with me.
Are your questions really so stupid, are theirs really so much smarter when they ask, or are you being harsh on yourself perhaps.
I wanted to use a purported quote from Maurice Wilkes that I couldn't track down a citation for in the introduction to my PhD thesis, so I emailed him. He must have been well into his eighties by that point. I got a very helpful reply and was able to use the quotation, properly cited (as well as add a "Wilkes, personal communication" to my citation list, which still makes me smile).
It wasn’t anything as extensive as what op is talking about but it made a deep impression on me. Something like the nerdling equivalent to getting a baseball hat signed. The potential with email to speak directly with people working in rarefied places was eye opening. It also gave a real confidence boost that I could stumble on interesting things to say.
There's also that if you're 45 years old, people expect to see some accomplishments, and are skeptical if you don't have any, whereas there is no such bar for 12-year-olds other than perhaps curiosity and ambition.