Live data from Hacker News

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

gwern.net

211–220 of 343 posts

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

#211

I just read this yesterday in Conversations with Walter Murch, a well-known film editor. Not exactly the same, but I do get the sense that Tao still feels the same way about math: As I've gone through life, I've found that your chances for happiness are increased if you wind up doing something that is a reflection of what you loved most when you were somewhere between nine and eleven years old. Interviewer: Yes—somet…

I wonder a bit about that. What activities or possibilities are you exposed at during that age. I know many computer science colleagues who were not exposed to programming during that age and only later came to it. I feel kind of lucky that somewhat randomly I stumbled into computer programming (because XtreeGold could show the content of files, and I was learning to understand BAT-files by looking into them) during…

Murch actually expands on that a little more in the interview. He doesn't mean the specific activity is what your job should be, it's more like "the basic similar activity."

So for him, as a video editor, it was using a tape recorder to record sounds, and reorganize them in an aesthetically appealing way. He didn't actually get into video editing specifically until after college IIRC.

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

#212
post #133

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…

Strictly speaking, evolution selects for viable offspring, not simply surviving. But that’s a nitpick, quite beside your point.

[dead]

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

#213

I really wonder what motivates a seven year old to persistently work on that „one thing“ and not get distracted/bored. I guess he knew he was special?

I believe it comes down to intrinsic interest, that he would not consider this something boring he needs to work through, but rather something fun and intriguing to spend his time on. Disregarding the unusual age in this case, I believe that most people could be significantly better at mathematics than they are, if only they found it interesting enough.

[deleted]

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

#214
post #137

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.

Agreed. It's been decades, but personally being acquaintances with IMO and IOI gold medalists made me rethink a lot of things. With our society being ostensibly meritocratic regarding intelligence, people generally don't like to listen to stories that suggest that nurture and hard work aren't as important as they presume.

It's still meritocratic even with dramatic genetic differences between individuals. A peer comment mentioned an anecdote of Terence nearly failing his orals because he ended spending all of his time playing Civ instead of studying anything.

It's basically the Gattaca story. Somebody can have the most brilliant mind in the world, but without actually applying it, they're not going to do great in life. If you give a person of average intellect Tao's life of dedication and work ethic, then he's going to end up a world class mathematician. He probably won't end up at the top of the top, as that's going to be reserved for those that hit the mega-lottery of genetics + dedication, but will also have no problem leaving his mark on this world and living a comfortable life.

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

#215
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laszlo Polgar would disagree [1]. He contends that raising a genius is something you can actually target intentionally (whether or not you should). His proof being 3 daughters who became GMs and one that was a generational talent. As far as audibles go, that’s quite a flex. Yes, the daughters are not all equally talented and chess isn’t quite the same as math, but we’re talking about gradiation within an achievement…

Even if you disregard the anecdote (n=1) thing, it's quite obvious that genius has a genetic component to it, and the father being a good chess player tilts the odds in his favor quite a bit. Also, the idea that chess is a good proxy for genius is a bit out of date.

Laszlo was casual amateur at chess, and it's an n=3 sample at least. Though one sister 'only' made it to IM, but that was likely more due to social reasons. She decided to get married, have a family, etc rather than continue on with chess as actively as the other sisters.

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

#217
post #49
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.

Learning three languages at an early age is completely unremarkable for millions of people around the world. It's just notable which ones his were.

I learned two languages growing up and was speaking both as soon as I could speak and could write in both not long after. This is typical for nearly every kid in the world outside of countries with strong language monocultures. I certainly think Mills was a very talented person, but there's this weird cult of being impressed by "speaks 7 languages" hagoigraphies which aren't helpful. People bring up it as some acid test of intelligence and its just not very accurate.

Especially when you actually know the language these kinds of people claim to speak and you realize they actually don't speak 7 languages but maybe know 2 or 3 fluently and know 'kitchen' versions of all the others. I'm not going to name names because I don't want an argument and don't have the spoons for it, but lots of these international luminaries and leaders and such with "speaks 7 language" are often little more than conmen or simply enjoy building their own little hagiographies for their own PR goals.

There's this wonderful deep-dive on youtube on Feynman's high-questionable personal mythology that is a great example of this kind of self-promotion and how easy it is to sell one's self, especially in academic and techie circles, if you have a certain amount of charisma and drive.

Also as a lefty, I'm also not impressed by breathless ambidextrous tales either as most lefties are forced to be ambidextrous and its not actually exceptional at all. I can write with both hands, play musical instruments either way, play sports either way, etc. The left hand is better at these things, but my right-hand is okay-ish at almost all these things and I use a right-hand dominant near everything in my life anyway. I even like to switch it up to keep wear and tear down. At work the mouse is on the left, but at home for gaming its on the right. This is all boring everyday stuff for lefties.

There's a toxic 'great man' mythology that humanity still can't get over and its weird seeing it taken seriously when so many 'great men' have been debunked or seen as recipients of the system they were under (Mills' father pushing him so hard and being in the privileged class that would allow all this instead of back-breaking farm labor all day). Personal talent is important but its vastly played up in dishonest ways for dishonest gains. We probably pass many highly talented people a day on the street, but only some had the opportunity to grow those gifts into something they can use.

The famous quote comes to mind. "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." - Stephen Jay Gould

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

#218

As a father of an 8 years old, this is very moving. While Terence is -without a doubt- born with prodigious abilities, I think credit should also be given to his parents Billy and Grace who seem to have managed to simultaneously nurture these special abilities while still letting Terence have a happy (?) childhood. This is not easy to do.

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 they deliberately underplayed their role in this. Especially with Asian parents who think such nurturing is part of the "norm". I wouldn't be surprised that they spent TONs of time tutoring him when he was young -- and when he was more or less self-bootstrapped they don't need to spend too much time.

But I could be wrong. He is definitely a genius so maybe he did grasp the ideas rather early, like from 3 or 4.

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

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laszlo Polgar would disagree [1]. He contends that raising a genius is something you can actually target intentionally (whether or not you should). His proof being 3 daughters who became GMs and one that was a generational talent. As far as audibles go, that’s quite a flex. Yes, the daughters are not all equally talented and chess isn’t quite the same as math, but we’re talking about gradiation within an achievement…

Yes, but that kind of aristocratic tutoring is not scalable to the bulk of the population. You need the equivalent of deep PhD expertise in every subject to accomplish that, and even AIs are nowhere close to that level.

[deleted]

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

#220
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 nearl…

He would just become a software engineer like the rest of us, and probably would have started google or netflix.
Post reply on HN