Terence Tao's General Exam

#1

Post by kenjackson » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 4:25 PM UTC

Terence Tao's General Exam
math.princeton.edu

Re: Terence Tao's General Exam

#2

Post by Cyph0n » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 5:28 PM UTC

I read the whole thing, and it surprisingly turned out to be pretty interesting (even though I didn't understand a thing).

I had to look up who the guy was afterwards though. A smart fellow indeed.

Re: Terence Tao's General Exam

#3

Post by bdhe » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 5:37 PM UTC

Cyph0n wrote: post #2

I read the whole thing, and it surprisingly turned out to be pretty interesting (even though I didn't understand a thing). I had to look up who the guy was afterwards though. A smart fellow indeed.

A smart fellow indeed.

He is one of the few people I know who has an insanely prolific online presence. His blog, What's New (https://terrytao.wordpress.com/) has hundreds of detailed articles on various math topics and occasionally I find myself using it as a beginner's reference to detailed topics. He's also published his blog posts as books. It is astounding how one person can produce so much intellectual output! This is in addition to his mathematical papers and books (https://terrytao.wordpress.com/books/)

Re: Terence Tao's General Exam

#4

Post by busyant » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 5:38 PM UTC

Just an FYI: the General Exam is the qualifying exam used to determine whether a graduate student (usually in his/her 2nd year) can continue on and complete his/her Ph.D. thesis. It's designed to test general knowledge (hence the name) in your field of study and sometimes the depth of your knowledge related to your thesis.

Different schools have different names for the exam. Sometimes it's written, sometimes it's oral...sometimes it's both. Depends on the school and the department.

In many instances, if you fail the exam you are booted from the Ph.D. program and given a "terminal" master's degree.

Re: Terence Tao's General Exam

#5

Post by tptacek » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 5:49 PM UTC

Advice: next time you feel an urge to frustration or mockery of non-computer-professionals, pull this up and start reading it from the top.

And this is the general exam.

Re: Terence Tao's General Exam

#6

Post by Cyph0n » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 6:18 PM UTC

bdhe wrote: post #3

Cyph0n wrote: post #2

I read the whole thing, and it surprisingly turned out to be pretty interesting (even though I didn't understand a thing). I had to look up who the guy was afterwards though. A smart fellow indeed.

A smart fellow indeed. He is one of the few people I know who has an insanely prolific online presence. His blog, What's New ( https://terrytao.wordpress.com/ ) has hundreds of detailed articles on various math topics and occasionally I find myself using it as a beginner's reference to detailed topics. He's also published his blog posts as books. It is astounding how one person can produce so much intellectual output…

I was also surprised at the number of awards and honors he's acquired at an insanely young age. He even scored 760 on the SAT when he was only 8 years old!

Re: Terence Tao's General Exam

#7

Post by btilly » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 6:57 PM UTC

busyant wrote: post #4

Just an FYI: the General Exam is the qualifying exam used to determine whether a graduate student (usually in his/her 2nd year) can continue on and complete his/her Ph.D. thesis. It's designed to test general knowledge (hence the name) in your field of study and sometimes the depth of your knowledge related to your thesis. Different schools have different names for the exam. Sometimes it's written, sometimes it's ora…

In many instances, if you fail the exam you are booted from the Ph.D. program and given a "terminal" master's degree.

In many others, if you fail the exam (or exams - in my case they just rolled this into the quals) you are booted from the program _without_ a masters degree.

I once spent a month teaching someone topology from scratch so that he could pass a qual he needed to get a PhD in combinatorics.

Re: Terence Tao's General Exam

#8

Post by sramsay » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 7:37 PM UTC

What's so striking to me, is how similar the exam is (in range, pace, and tone) to the Ph.D. oral exams I took for a doctorate in English (years ago). That same rhythm. The minute you start to set forth an argument, they get you off onto something else. A lot of times, you're groping for the question.

Few people walk away from them feeling like they did well, but later, you have a sense of accomplishment just for having done it at all.

Re: Terence Tao's General Exam

#9

Post by neworder » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 7:39 PM UTC

I absolutely love the ending:

"After this, they decided to pass me, though they said that my harmonic analysis was far from satisfactory. :("

especially when compared to the Fields Medal citation, where Tao is awarded the medal "for his contributions to partial differential equations, combinatorics, harmonic analysis and additive number theory".

Seems he did learn a bit of harmonic analysis in the meantime.

Re: Terence Tao's General Exam

#10

Post by jarekr » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 7:42 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #5

Advice: next time you feel an urge to frustration or mockery of non-computer-professionals, pull this up and start reading it from the top. And this is the general exam.

I obviously won't doubt the genius of Terrence Tao, but reading about PhD level research from any other discipline without knowing a yota about it would leave exactly the same impression, even from a lesser scientist. Of course some people are incredibly smart, but there is no need to mythologize their abilities without having any understanding of what they have actually done. Thus I think such an article can only have value for people who at least vaguely understand the mathematics involved.