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The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

nytimes.com

11–20 of 42 posts

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#11
post #7

This article does a much better job than many explaining what math research is actually like. I particularly like the "chess with the devil" metaphor: The steady state of mathematical research is to be completely stuck. It is a process that Charles Fefferman of Princeton, himself a onetime math prodigy turned Fields medalist, likens to "playing chess with the devil." The rules of the devil’s game are special, though:…

I had a less dark version, saying nature is a fair bitch. You'll fail but everything was under your nose from day one. You just had to explore the black space of ignorance, lighting it spark after spark.

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#12
post #3

Authors routinely cherry pick mathematicians / scientists to perpetuate the 'scientist as weirdo' myth. It is fundamentally dishonest and misleads the general population. Here, the author chooses, Newton, Nash, and Pearlman. Of that, Nash was diagnozed and treated for a mental illness. That doesn't make him a weirdo at all. There is very likely no causative relationship between passion for math or science and schizop…

While I very much agree with the point you're making here, I don't known if Witten (assuming you mean Edward Witten, of string theory fame) and Einstein were the best choices. Einstein basically is THE stereotype of the aloof genius.

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#14
post #2

The idea of a world class mathematician as as weird genius is common and may be said is not totally without base (Perelman comes to mind). Tao's interactions on his blog is always unassuming, trying to help, "super normal" as this article puts it. But to me the even more amazing thing is how good an educator he is. Most mathematicians I have encountered were of the "proof is left as an exercise" type, where if you di…

I used Tao's books on Real Analysis during college and my feelings are mixed on his capabilities as an educator. On the one hand his books were really great as he gave a lot of proofs (although most proofs were still left to the reader, but I guess that you can't really learn Analysis without proving Rolle's Theorem or the First Theorem of Calculus on your own) and what I also really liked was that he made no assumpt…

Sounds like he just needed a few math grad student editors. A real reason for a new edition!

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#15
post #12
post #3

Authors routinely cherry pick mathematicians / scientists to perpetuate the 'scientist as weirdo' myth. It is fundamentally dishonest and misleads the general population. Here, the author chooses, Newton, Nash, and Pearlman. Of that, Nash was diagnozed and treated for a mental illness. That doesn't make him a weirdo at all. There is very likely no causative relationship between passion for math or science and schizop…

While I very much agree with the point you're making here, I don't known if Witten (assuming you mean Edward Witten, of string theory fame) and Einstein were the best choices. Einstein basically is THE stereotype of the aloof genius.

> Einstein basically is THE stereotype of the aloof genius.

'Aloof' is a subjective term and you are entitled to judge him that way if you want to.

I'll assume, 'aloofness' to mean that his thinking was confined to his work and that he lived by himself without much contact with the outside world (a la Pearlman).

The reality may have been the exact opposite of this, if you look at his biography. My main source is Walter Isaacson's book. Einstein was a humanist who cared much for the well being of humans. He was a social person by all accounts, forming warm relationships with people from all walks of life. As a youth, he was a keen student of music and philosophy, as evinced by his deep involvement in a study group with a couple of his friends. His personal relationships and tribulations (e.g. divorcing Mileva Maric and marrying his cousin) seem no more deviant than that of many normal people. He was a committed pacifist who campaigned for many issues by using his standing in society as an intellectual. He supported the Zionist cause, decried racism and bigotry, etc. He wrote many essays and expressed very clear and reasonable opinions on a wide range of topics ranging from the American society to nuclear weapons.

Compare that to Pearlman declining the Fields Medal and Newton dabbling with alchemy and occultism, which are both representative of fairly weird behavior. To reiterate, 'weird' by societal norms, which individuals may or may not be expected to uphold (unlike, laws).

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#16
post #2

The idea of a world class mathematician as as weird genius is common and may be said is not totally without base (Perelman comes to mind). Tao's interactions on his blog is always unassuming, trying to help, "super normal" as this article puts it. But to me the even more amazing thing is how good an educator he is. Most mathematicians I have encountered were of the "proof is left as an exercise" type, where if you di…

I used Tao's books on Real Analysis during college and my feelings are mixed on his capabilities as an educator. On the one hand his books were really great as he gave a lot of proofs (although most proofs were still left to the reader, but I guess that you can't really learn Analysis without proving Rolle's Theorem or the First Theorem of Calculus on your own) and what I also really liked was that he made no assumpt…

> (first set theory, then properties of natural, whole and rational numbers before constructing the real numbers using Cauchy sequences)

This is the standard presentation in every textbook I have read.

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#17
post #7

This article does a much better job than many explaining what math research is actually like. I particularly like the "chess with the devil" metaphor: The steady state of mathematical research is to be completely stuck. It is a process that Charles Fefferman of Princeton, himself a onetime math prodigy turned Fields medalist, likens to "playing chess with the devil." The rules of the devil’s game are special, though:…

To be clear, Tao doesn't say that he is not a genius. Tao was known as a once-in-a-generation mathematical genius before he was 10 years old. (There was a magazine article about him and super-gifted education in Australia.) Both of Tao's brothers have extremely high IQ (>150).

Tao claims that you can contribute nonzero progress to mathematics without being a genius, but even so, the requirements he lays out aren't requirements that anyone with a childhood What is blog post is saying is that math is not magic -- it takes brilliance AND hard work, not just brilliance.

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#18
Clearly Tao's problem stems from having a singular mind. I have three of four that I warm-swap overnight depending on what I need to do the next day. This is only problematic when I get called into unexpected long meetings when I'd loaded my Creative Mind the night before as opposed to the one that deals with Unending Boredom.

Tao needs to expand his repertoire.

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#20
Design question: Why do authors take nice sounding quotes from the text and put them in large text aside the article? Is it to keep people interested, as in the reader is thinking "This article is awful" and then they see an amazing quote farther down the page and decide to keep reading? Maybe the writers at nytimes have a picture quota and putting pictures of lines from the article technically counts? Maybe WE as readers require pictures to stay interested, and these large quotes somehow satisfy that need? I just get tired of reading the same lines twice.
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