Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 42 posts

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#31

Post by copperx »

mikeyouse wrote: post #29
gohrt wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

Completely off-topic ethical prompt; Should society fund the harvesting of eggs / sperm from his parents to serve as a genius bank for surrogate parents? Could 1,000 children with equal capabilities dramatically alter the course of humanity?

I would venture to say 'yes', assuming that top-notch resources are given to the children.

Also, there seems to be a precedent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repository_for_Germinal_Choice

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#32

Post by javert »

qmalxp wrote: post #21
solidangle wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's probably worth pointing out that Good Educator != Good Author. I have heard from people who would know that your guess is not so far off, but having taken classes from him I can attest he is an excellent teacher in addition to being a world class mathematician. I also want to add that although he is extremely friendly and helpful, it'd be dishonest to say he isn't a bit weird. However, that is probably just an i…

How is he weird? Just curious.

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#33

Post by davmre »

mikeyouse wrote: post #29
gohrt wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

Completely off-topic ethical prompt; Should society fund the harvesting of eggs / sperm from his parents to serve as a genius bank for surrogate parents? Could 1,000 children with equal capabilities dramatically alter the course of humanity?

It's not clear the genetic component is what matters here; you could equally well suggest that Tao's parents should adopt and raise lots of other smart kids. Though cloning 1000 Terry Taos would certainly be an interesting investigation into nature/nature.

In any case IQ >150 is not that rare; there are hundreds of thousands of such people alive right now even just in the US. Clearly there are other qualifications to be a mathematical genius. It'd be a wonderful thing if we could reproduce those qualities, but I don't think we know enough right now to say that genetic cloning is the appropriate path.

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#34

Post by overpaidgoogler »

I met Terry in 2002. I had heard about him when I did the IMO training, but at some point someone said he was in the department so I should talk to him. He showed me some work he was doing related to what happens to the determinants of matrices when you sum then. I remarked on how I was surprised at how "elementary" this work was, and he replied that if math was really that deep, no one would be able to do research. I suspected then that this work was especially elementary and most research math was deeper (and thus more inaccessible for an undergrad), but I appreciated the sentiment.

I wouldn't read to much into how "normal" Terry is portrayed as being. Terry struck me as somewhat nerdy in his demeanor. Certainly not crazy or eccentric (and as the above anecdote suggests, a nice guy) but also different from the average person.

I say this because I feel like when people say "your don't have to be a weirdo to be a great mathematician" this actually denigrates the personality type that is common among most actual mathematicians including Terry.

On the other hand I do feel that all children should be given the opportunity to grow and express themselves in all aspects of their life. It was nice to see the positive and supporting attitude is Terry's parents.

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#35

Post by overpaidgoogler »

javert wrote: post #32
qmalxp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably worth pointing out that Good Educator != Good Author. I have heard from people who would know that your guess is not so far off, but having taken classes from him I can attest he is an excellent teacher in addition to being a world class mathematician. I also want to add that although he is extremely friendly and helpful, it'd be dishonest to say he isn't a bit weird. However, that is probably just an i…

How is he weird? Just curious.

Not in any specific way, but he has a nerdy demeanor. There are many interviews of him online your can watch.

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#37

Post by plonh »

comrade1 wrote: post #19

Finally, a child prodigy that actually continues with their talents into adulthood, and also is socially adept, based on his education skills.

The 1986 magazine article linked elsewhere in this thread talks about the great effort his parents put into cultivating his education+exploration without pushing him into burnout.

It also helps that his field his math, where a person and their books can grow up together without delicate social balancing.

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#38

Post by klenwell »

The first paragraph describing Tao's musings on the explosive potential of water reminds me of a singular experience I had not too long ago.

One evening I was going to pour myself a glass of lemonade. I put a otherwise ordinary ribbed juice glass[0] on the counter, got a couple ice cubes out of a tray in the freezer, and lightly tossed the first one in the glass.

The ice cube hit the rim and the glass shattered utterly. There was no piece fragment left much larger than a small piece of gravel. I was stunned. I thought for a moment maybe a sniper was targeting my glass from somewhere outside in the darkness.

It seemed like a fairly sturdy glass. My hand wasn't more than a few inches from it when I released the ice cube. The only explanation I could come up with is the universe is essentially probabilistic and I had just witnessed some kind of winning-the-Mega-Lotto-odds improbable sort of event.

My brother is a material scientist and I ran the episode by him next time I saw him. He had a slightly different take on it. He said, "Glass is weird. It's like water in some ways." And then he dove into some interesting technicalities that I can't recall.

Closest I can say I've seen to water spontaneously exploding. Unless you count this.[1]

[0] Looked sorta like this, but clear: https://img1.etsystatic.com/046/0/8523418/il_340x270.7059824...

[1] http://www.surfline.com/surflinetv/featured-clips/worst-wipe...

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#39

Post by iglookid »

klenwell wrote: post #38

The first paragraph describing Tao's musings on the explosive potential of water reminds me of a singular experience I had not too long ago. One evening I was going to pour myself a glass of lemonade. I put a otherwise ordinary ribbed juice glass[0] on the counter, got a couple ice cubes out of a tray in the freezer, and lightly tossed the first one in the glass. The ice cube hit the rim and the glass shattered utter…

Prince Rupert's Drop behaves similarly.

https://youtu.be/xe-f4gokRBs

Re: The Singular Mind of Terry Tao

#40

Post by darkmighty »

overpaidgoogler wrote: post #34

I met Terry in 2002. I had heard about him when I did the IMO training, but at some point someone said he was in the department so I should talk to him. He showed me some work he was doing related to what happens to the determinants of matrices when you sum then. I remarked on how I was surprised at how "elementary" this work was, and he replied that if math was really that deep, no one would be able to do research.…

Yea it bothers me a little too. Some people will actively put down anything that doesn't conform the norm even down to your gait, as the reporter said, and I find it really hard to accept this.

Mathematics is a matter of mental bandwidth: you're dedicating all your attention to it, save for reserves to your kids and loved ones. Normal jobs don't have this -- with the lack of more interesting things to think about, you can spend your whole day thinking about other people and critiquing their dressing, their gait, the way they talk, etc, which is all part of being "normal" and is a set of really shallow conventions for me.

Post reply on HN