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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]

#91

Post by mmooss »

alisonkisk wrote: post #75
mmooss wrote: post #63

I wonder if Terence agreed to have this published. This is an intimate look into the private life of an eight year old, written up as something like a lab report; it's not research on bacteria or monkeys or anonymous study subjects. It's possible that he did give permission, of course.

He was 7 years old, so it was impossible for him to give consent for anything. His parents gave consent on his behalf.

I didn't realize this was published at the time. Still, I wonder what the current, adult Terence thinks. Whether or not legal recourse is available doesn't change Tao's feelings about it and isn't determinative regarding republishing it now is a good idea.

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

#92

Post by hgomersall »

Darkstryder wrote: post #35

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.

In my house we discuss a macro feature of children as being "school-shaped". If Terence Tao wasn't school-shaped, would he have been as successful? The counter-point to that is to ponder how many children fail to achieve a similar level of success because they don't fit into the school system so are left by the wayside.

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

#93

Post by Liftyee »

creamyhorror wrote: post #11

Incredible. Knowing about Abelian groups, being able to graph y = x^3 — 2x^2 + x in one minute, and performing integration at age 7. Chomping up university-level math textbooks by 8. A classical math prodigy. I definitely empathize with "his preference for using an analytic, highly logical problem-solving strategy" (I'm not a genius ofc). It's often more immediately clear for me than visual/spatial manipulation.

Curious. I admire the analytic side since it's what I consider myself personally weak at. I have always preferred visual and spatial problems (then again, I spent a long time playing with Lego and making things).

I wonder how I ought to train up problem solving, given that I have an engineering degree to finish.

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

#94

Post by ileonichwiesz »

jonahx wrote: post #69
jama211 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I simply disagree. Yes, they could. Same with adults. Basically no one does. Also I didn’t say innate ability doesn’t exist. But in my opinion is a small multiplier on top of effort. That’s why I said close to.

There are many, many people (math majors, competitive programmers, chess players, etc) who devote incredible effort to becoming better, and simply cannot reach elite levels. And while in most cases elite players are also putting in a lot of effort, there are many cases where it is still relatively less than their peers who are trying harder but still lagging them. Would you ever be tempted to make such a claim (that…

> Would you ever be tempted to make such a claim (that everyone is close to the same in ability and effort is the main determiner of success) about athletes?

Well yes, absolutely. People don’t do quadruple axels on the ice because they were somehow born with the ability, they can do it because they practice figure skating every day for years. Innate ability (or in this case, let’s be honest, mostly genetics determining body shape) certainly makes the difference between becoming an Olympic gold medalist and just being very good at the sport, but you need to get very far in the field before it truly holds you back.

I don’t have a lot of experience with high-level professional sports, but I’m a classically trained violinist, and I’ve seen first-hand how a lot of the abilities that many people chalk up to “talent” (sense of rhythm, perfect pitch, composing music) are just skills that can be learned. Some students might need to practice more than others, sure, and some might reach a higher ceiling, but I firmly believe anyone can reach a high level with applied effort.

“I don’t have the talent to paint so I won’t learn to do it” is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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

#95

Post by ileonichwiesz »

weatherlite wrote: post #39
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?

No .. not really. Not even close. Just like even if I practiced music 8 hours a day I wouldn't be able to come up with the music Kurt Cobain has or Mozart. There are plenty of musicians who try really hard but lack the innate talent - at best they can learn to play other people's music but never can come up with good original music, at least not something other people want to hear. As someone wrote here innate abilit…

I think you’re confusing mastery with marketability. “Other people want to hear it” is at best adjacent to someone’s skill at composing or playing music.

There’s plenty of mediocre musicians who became world-famous, and plenty of great musicians who nobody’s heard about. Skill and success are pretty weakly correlated.

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

#96

Post by exceptione »

stevoski wrote: post #90
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.

My daughter spoke four languages at age 3. Not because she is gifted, but because she grew up in an immigrant environment. One language with me, another with my partner who speaks a different mother tongue than I do, and the two local languages where we live. And this is utterly unremarkable where I live. When we visit my family (who are all monolingual), they think she is a prodigy. She’s not. She’s just a normal ki…

Latin and Greek are classical, 'dead' languages.

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

#97

Post by matsemann »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #43
Darkstryder wrote: post #35

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.

> and later on won the Putnam one year

Just the once, though, huh? [0]

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35015#35079

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

#98

Post by SiempreViernes »

exceptione wrote: post #96
stevoski wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My daughter spoke four languages at age 3. Not because she is gifted, but because she grew up in an immigrant environment. One language with me, another with my partner who speaks a different mother tongue than I do, and the two local languages where we live. And this is utterly unremarkable where I live. When we visit my family (who are all monolingual), they think she is a prodigy. She’s not. She’s just a normal ki…

Latin and Greek are classical, 'dead' languages.

That there are no native speakers doesn't mean there are no tutors that speak it.

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

#99

Post by andyferris »

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.

Actually - do they do this in LLM benchmarks? As a measure of overconfidence/confabulation? Seems immediately applicable.

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

#100

Post by defrost »

exceptione wrote: post #96
stevoski wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My daughter spoke four languages at age 3. Not because she is gifted, but because she grew up in an immigrant environment. One language with me, another with my partner who speaks a different mother tongue than I do, and the two local languages where we live. And this is utterly unremarkable where I live. When we visit my family (who are all monolingual), they think she is a prodigy. She’s not. She’s just a normal ki…

Latin and Greek are classical, 'dead' languages.

In the time of J.S.M. they were languages used by academics and upper classes regularly enough that in his circles he and many of his peers had early exposure.

Hence that scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian.

Still fun today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mip30YF1iuo

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