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

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

#161

Post by fuzzfactor »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #25
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…

It depends on how much value their talents can bring to humankind, I guess.

Very good guess, right on the money

Too bad humankind is almost never paying attention.

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

#162

Post by mlrtime »

simsla wrote: post #131
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Terence Tao wasn't school-shaped, would he have been as successful? He learned to read and write by himself. I'm pretty sure he would've been fine regardless of shape.

And that's probably the opposite of being school-shaped. School is hellishly boring if you're ahead of the curve.

The pdf linked seems to disagree with your assessment, at least for Tao.

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

#163

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

> he entries marked with an asterisk (*) were to take place at Bellevue Heights Primary School (Year 5) and the others at Blackwood High School (year 8: General Studies, Year 11: Physics, Year 12: Mathematics).

So he was able to attend classes out of his own year. What country is this? USA? Is that normal in the USA? I think here in the UK this isn't possible.

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

#164

Post by shric »

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #163

> he entries marked with an asterisk (*) were to take place at Bellevue Heights Primary School (Year 5) and the others at Blackwood High School (year 8: General Studies, Year 11: Physics, Year 12: Mathematics). So he was able to attend classes out of his own year. What country is this? USA? Is that normal in the USA? I think here in the UK this isn't possible.

Australia

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

#165

Post by piker »

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #163

> he entries marked with an asterisk (*) were to take place at Bellevue Heights Primary School (Year 5) and the others at Blackwood High School (year 8: General Studies, Year 11: Physics, Year 12: Mathematics). So he was able to attend classes out of his own year. What country is this? USA? Is that normal in the USA? I think here in the UK this isn't possible.

Presumably Australia where he’s from, but also possible in the U.S.

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

#166

Post by defrost »

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #163

> he entries marked with an asterisk (*) were to take place at Bellevue Heights Primary School (Year 5) and the others at Blackwood High School (year 8: General Studies, Year 11: Physics, Year 12: Mathematics). So he was able to attend classes out of his own year. What country is this? USA? Is that normal in the USA? I think here in the UK this isn't possible.

As others said, Australia.

Like Terence I also had "out of band" classes and free time to read advance material in both primary and high school.

During that period Australia also had good federal and state programs for clustering advanced kids on yearly subsidised specialist camps - optional and free if parents couldn't afford to chip in.

I bumped into him at the same time Paul Erdős was doing the rounds and hanging out with anyone that might show promise.

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

#167

Post by nephihaha »

vixen99 wrote: post #125
nephihaha wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unusual to study Latin before Greek. It's usually the other way round.

Tangential but am reminded of Churchill's comments" "And when in after years my school-fellows who had won prizes and distinction for writing such beautiful Latin poetry and pithy Greek epigrams had to come down again to common English, to earn their living or make their way, I did not feel myself at any disadvantage." and "“However, by being so long in the lowest form I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer…

Latin was a lot more common than Greek in schools in the UK. But even that tended to be private schools after the sixties and seventies. Greek was a subset of that.

I was lucky, I had two or three excellent English teachers. Very inspiring and helpful. I wish I could say the same about mathematics (most of my teachers were terrible and one didn't even teach us how to do the problems)... Or my French teacher. I think we spoke better French than he did at the end. Since I spent a lot of my childhood in rural Scotland I was effectively bilingual anyway.

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

#168

Post by mkoubaa »

vbezhenar wrote: post #146
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.

I learned to read at age three or four, I think and I consumed every book I could find, including various math books, old chemistry books, etc. I didn't really understand anything there, but it was just fascinating to me to even touch that knowledge. So I'm a bit skeptic about these stories of children studying Plato.

Talk to an average college freshman that studies plato and you might be similarly disappointed

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

#169

Post by koolba »

MrOrelliOReilly wrote: post #50
SJC_Hacker wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't find the reference but from an interview with his parents there apparently there wasn't much "nurturing" other than simply making available the necessary materials which he gobbled up. Its not like they put a made him practice for an hour a day. A boy in my high school class made IMO and got a gold medal (and later on won the Putnam one year). They interviewed his parents and it was a similar story.

I think you might be underrating the value of even that enabling work. Some parents would not have the financial resources to provide those learning materials. And some parents would take a normative stance on how an 8 year old ought to behave. More importantly, it's not as though individuals like Clements or Erdos was corresponding with Terrence directly to arrange a meeting. His parents clearly played an important…

> I think you might be underrating the value of even that enabling work. Some parents would not have the financial resources to provide those learning materials. And some parents would take a normative stance on how an 8 year old ought to behave.

And most modern parents would swamp the child with a bunch of mind rotting auto playing TV and video games. There's an account of Terence's time at university where he nearly fails his oral qualifying exams as he spent most of his time playing Civ rather than studying anything. Imagine the travesty for the world if 5 year old Terence had been handed an Xbox.

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

#170

Post by quietbritishjim »

vixen99 wrote: post #125
nephihaha wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unusual to study Latin before Greek. It's usually the other way round.

Tangential but am reminded of Churchill's comments" "And when in after years my school-fellows who had won prizes and distinction for writing such beautiful Latin poetry and pithy Greek epigrams had to come down again to common English, to earn their living or make their way, I did not feel myself at any disadvantage." and "“However, by being so long in the lowest form I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer…

Great quote!

Your final sentence seems a bit odd in that context though: Churchill's point is that Latin and Greek actually isn't useful at all, so it would follow that it isn't better to do both (i.e. study the classics as well as English), especially as time to learn them would have a huge opportunity cost, e.g. you could use that time to study more English composition instead.

(If you think they're worth learning just for their own sake then that's another matter, but the quote seems to imply that Churchill wouldn't agree.)

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