William Thurston seems like a mathematician that was not just leading the parade, but rather made fundamental contributions to his fields that no one else would have made in his time. To quote, “He wanted to avoid in hyperbolic geometry what had happened when his basic papers on foliations “tsunamied” the field in the early 1970s.”, meaning that he made so many deep and varied contributions so fast that no one could keep up. More in https://www.ams.org/notices/201511/rnoti-p1318.pdf such as “The huge and daunting advances he made in foliation theory were off-putting, and students stopped going into the area, resulting in an unfortunate premature arrest in the development of the subject while it was still in its prime. (If someone writes a book incorporating Bill’s advances, it will take off again.)”
William Thurston seems like a mathematician that was not just leading the parade, but rather made fundamental contributions to his fields that no one else would have made in his time. To quote, “He wanted to avoid in hyperbolic geometry what had happened when his basic papers on foliations “tsunamied” the field in the early 1970s.”, meaning that he made so many deep and varied contributions so fast that no one could keep up. More in https://www.ams.org/notices/201511/rnoti-p1318.pdf such as “The huge and daunting advances he made in foliation theory were off-putting, and students stopped going into the area, resulting in an unfortunate premature arrest in the development of the subject while it was still in its prime. (If someone writes a book incorporating Bill’s advances, it will take off again.)”