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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]

#221

Post by lupire »

somenameforme wrote: post #214
hnfong wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pe…

If it's so easy to be a world class mathematician, why can't most mathematicians do it?

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

#222

Post by noisy_boy »

albertzeyer wrote: post #207
keiferski wrote: post #108

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…

I first touched a computer after completing my university degree and I still remember the happiness I felt by simply running a DOS command and seeing the expected output.

It does't matter when the plug finds the socket - it is always electric.

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

#223

Post by lupire »

vlovich123 wrote: post #171
fifilura wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We pressure our kids into grit, but genius comes from the inside. Be grateful when it happens, but be happy if it does not.

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…

That showed that you can be the best at something low value if you spend more than it's worth.

Most of the people so could be chess grandmasters are busy applying their brains to something else.

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

#225

Post by lupire »

SirHumphrey wrote: post #157
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.

This is the theory of Elite Overproduction

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

#226

Post by jodrellblank »

lupire wrote: post #221
somenameforme wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pe…

If it's so easy to be a world class mathematician, why can't most mathematicians do it?

Which part of "lifetime of hard work and dedication" are you misreading as "so easy"?

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

#227

Post by lupire »

impossiblefork wrote: post #28

I like that test where some of the questions are wrong and wonder whether we should have that kind of thing in maths textbooks. I think people need to be trained to be more confident in what they know, and if we gave them that kind of thing we could maybe train them to become so.

"incomplete information" is a standard concept in word problem curriculum. But usually it's explicitly an option in the test, as a fairness to the student.

Making mistakes in lecture is a standard technique used by good teachers, to promote active listening and critical thinking.

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

#228

Post by danielmarkbruce »

hnfong wrote: post #137
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.

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.

>> people generally don't like to listen to stories that suggest that nurture and hard work aren't as important as they presume

Having grown up in australia but living in the us, this attitude is very american. It's quite funny to see when you don't grow up thinking it. I married into a very athletic family and have a child who is a precocious athlete. Many parents ask us what training regime or practice sessions we do. The answer is nothing. People don't react well.

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

#229

Post by sleepyams »

jdthedisciple wrote: post #31
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…

> 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 a prodigy in maths or science We living on the same planet? Pretty sure the supermodel gets infinitely more attention and certainly makes orders of magnitudes more money than some math prodigy, at least on mine.

I think Terrence Tao makes at least 600k at UCLA. Not too bad if you ask me.

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

#230

Post by danielmarkbruce »

somenameforme wrote: post #214
hnfong wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pe…

"Dedication and work ethic" is almost certainly nonsense here. Some people do the activity a lot without having any ethic or dedication - they like it.
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