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

Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

gwern.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 343 posts

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#151

Post by confidantlake »

mmooss wrote: post #53
jama211 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure it works like that, I think his biggest superpower was intrinsic motivation. Any child who read maths textbooks with enthusiasm for 3-4 hours a day for years could in theory at least get close to doing what he did, but what kid had that level of motivation?

Another requirement is the emotional capacity at 8 years old to focus, feel confident, and feel safe. I think that is the main obstacle to most people doing highly effective work and putting in long hours. You hear some call people who don't 'work hard' lazy, but my impression is that it's emotional capacity, and a lot of that comes from family. I wonder if there is a correlation between prodigies and emotionally sta…

Yes the correlation is there but it doesn't really matter. There are hundreds of millions of kids growing up with stable healthy parents and a handful of prodigies.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#152

Post by fuzzfactor »

bendbro wrote: post #37
jama211 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure it works like that, I think his biggest superpower was intrinsic motivation. Any child who read maths textbooks with enthusiasm for 3-4 hours a day for years could in theory at least get close to doing what he did, but what kid had that level of motivation?

I take it you've never met another human before

This can descend from a hive-mind of not ever giving credit to anyone different than themselves.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#153

Post by graphcolorer »

I like this part very much:

More than three years after this episode took place, Terence, still a little boy, happily played hide and seek with his two younger brothers when the Tao family visited the Clements household. He is a happy, well-mannered lad who obviously loves and respects his parents and his two brothers. He gets on well with others, too. Mr John Fidge, his Year 11 Mathematics teacher at Blackwood High School for the first two terms of 1983, told me that after he had been attending the Year 11 Mathematics classes for about a fortnight he was accepted as just another member of the class. He is always willing to volunteer answers to questions asked by his teachers and was regarded as a friendly, humble, but very bright boy by his classmates.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#154

Post by ooloncoloophid »

chao- wrote: post #8

This brings to mind the childhood of John Stuart Mill: - Learned Greek starting age three. - Was studying Plato at age six. - Studied Latin starting at age eight. And more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Biography I guess it helps that he had Jeremy Bentham hanging around his house from an early age.

His book 'On Liberty' is the subject of a recent In Our Time episode (BBC Radio Four series on the history of ideas) [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002pqnc]. They discuss his childhood and his (apparently very warm) relationship with his father. (Sidenote: first proper In Our Time episode with the new host; he seems fine, but I miss Melvyn Bragg.)

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#155

Post by fuzzfactor »

jama211 wrote: post #59
qsera wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it has to be both. You need some ability to understand and thus find happiness in the thing that you are reading which leads to the motivation.

Yes, the “with enthusiasm” bit is very important.

That's why I loved comic books.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#156

Post by hennell »

whatshisface wrote: post #89
nananana9 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does feel like something a super smart alien pretending to be an 8 year old would write.

Sometimes I wonder if HNers have met more aliens than 8 year olds.

Most 8 year olds haven't met any aliens.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#157

Post by SirHumphrey »

aurareturn wrote: post #17

I know it must be obvious but this proves to me that biological intelligence hasn't nearly reached its peak. If we select for pure intelligence, biological brains can get much smarter. Imagine if we had 5 million geniuses as smart or smarter than Tao doing quantum physics. But life doesn't select for pure intelligence, it selects for survival. In the Dune books, they banned computers so they bred super mentally capab…

There is a slightly unexplored tangent in Brave New World about an experiment on Cyprus, where a society of humans bread to be intelligent descended in to civil war because nobody wanted to do menial work.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#158

Post by fuzzfactor »

ACS_Solver wrote: post #119
ChaitanyaSai wrote: post #72

Fascinating read! And very interesting in the light of recent advances in AI to think about what makes this ability possible. How far can we go with increasing long-term memory and working memory? Does increasing comprehension follow with competence? Long-term retention is is hard when encountering new symbols. He seemed quite comfortable at that age absorbing the new stuff and manipulating it. Where does that comfor…

This is one of the most interesting questions to me about human brains, and as far as I know no significant progress has been made in answering it. Some people appear to have a capacity for learning, retention and understanding that is well outside the normal range. People like Ramanujan or von Neumann, or Tao. They learn at a speed that far exceeds the speed of what we would consider gifted students, they reach a de…

Could be something even more difficult to identify that keeps everyone else from doing it.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#159

Post by fuzzfactor »

quietthrow wrote: post #21

Genuine curiosity: if you are gifted with a certain “wiring” (genes, brain chemistry etc) why is that considered an accomplishment? Also - We, as a society, tend to celebrate people with “natural didn’t really need to work for” type gifts quite inconsistently - eg A supermodel who is gifted with the gift of looks, beauty etc is also in the same category of “natural” talent but sure doesn’t get the same celebration as…

I like a massive head start.

There may not be many other things which can contribute the same advantage.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#160

Post by fuzzfactor »

DeathArrow wrote: post #41
quietthrow wrote: post #21

Genuine curiosity: if you are gifted with a certain “wiring” (genes, brain chemistry etc) why is that considered an accomplishment? Also - We, as a society, tend to celebrate people with “natural didn’t really need to work for” type gifts quite inconsistently - eg A supermodel who is gifted with the gift of looks, beauty etc is also in the same category of “natural” talent but sure doesn’t get the same celebration as…

The two types of talents can be judged by the impact they have. A scientific gifted individual can produce value while a good looking individual has mostly entertainment value. That being said, supermodels are more famous, have a much larger following and earn much more money than math geniuses. That says we, humans, care more about entertainment than value.

>A scientific gifted individual can produce value

They can also produce a lot of damage unless they refrain to an extent.

Post reply on HN