Terry Tao, the greatest mathematician in the world

[Andy Nguyen]

A great read for many members here about a young math genius, the best of our time. I learned about Terry Tao in the year of 2004 during graduate school when my PhD advisor discussed the Green-Tao paper.
The article author did a great job making the material very accessible even if you are not a math major.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/magazine/the-singular-mind-of-terry-tao.html

 

[Ryan Shrott]

Imagine that there is an advanced civilization of aliens around some distant star: They surely do not speak English, they may or may not have developed television, but we can be almost certain that their mathematicians have discovered the primes and puzzled over them.

Yup.

 

[MiloRambaldi]

... a young math genius, the best of our time. ...

He's not that young anymore Nor the best of our time, IMHO (not quite at the level of say Perelman).

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Mathematics has been going downhill since the golden age of Mathematical Physics.

These days it's twiddling with symbols.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Yup.

But do these aliens have a prize-fighter of the calibre of Euler?

 

[bigbadwolf]

Mathematics has been going downhill since the golden age of Mathematical Physics.

These days it's twiddling with symbols.

It's become baroque -- a sign of decadence and senility.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

It's become baroque -- a sign of decadence and senility.

Has mathematics lost contact with reality?

 

[bigbadwolf]

Has mathematics lost contact with reality?

It's become a "glass bead game" (read Hermann Hesse's novel).

 

[C S]

Has mathematics lost contact with reality?

Well, Tao came up with compressed sensing, so I wouldn't say so.

 

[TehRaio]

even though science has been democratized we still expect scientific breakthrough to come from brilliant individuals. We are still looking for the next "einstein", and since we haven't found him yet it's possible some feel that math and physics are not advancing at the same pace it did in the early 20th century.
I think the advantage of our time is quantity not necessarily quality. Yes, quality is important ( the geniuses ) but I expect ( I even prefer) new groundbreaking stuff to come out from collaboration between large numbers of scientists (less fragile).

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Einstein was a physicist, not a mathematician,. And somewhat overrated IMO.

 

[ExSan]

He's not that young anymore Nor the best of our time, IMHO (not quite at the level of say Perelman).

I would like to know more about Perelman

 

[Daniel Duffy]

I would like to know more about Perelman

I have no idea on where to find .

The Mathematics Genealogy Project - Grigorii Perelman

 

[bigbadwolf]

Einstein was a physicist, not a mathematician,. And somewhat overrated IMO.

Agreed. And not enough credit to Hilbert.

 

[TehRaio]

One question though. In the realm of mathematics why would the best mathematicians be the ones excelling in pure math domains and not those who worked on more applied stuff?

 

[bigbadwolf]

One question though. In the realm of mathematics why would the best mathematicians be the ones excelling in pure math domains and not those who worked on more applied stuff?

Coz they know math. The pure mathematicians may work in applied math -- as Gauss, Hilbert, Euler, Riemann, and Poincare did -- but they know math inside out.

 

[IntoDarkness]

the watered-down "applied" math taught in some schools r alarming. math got reduced to bunch formulae and students could only do "plug-in" with no ability to adapt

 

[Daniel Duffy]

It's become a "glass bead game" (read Hermann Hesse's novel).

I like Euler. Imagine inventing graph theory just by thinking about crossing bridges.

 

[bigbadwolf]

the watered-down "applied" math taught in some schools r alarming. math got reduced to bunch formulae and students could only do "plug-in" with no ability to adapt

Ask yourself how many schools are teaching analysis from books like Whittaker and Watson (A Course of Modern Analysis) or Titchmarsh (Theory of Functions). Ask yourself how many schools are not bothering to teaching things like lim sup.

 

[vertigo]

one only needs to look at the different fields of mathematics Tao has touched to see how intelligent he is... people here saying 'he isn't as smart as Perelman' are relegating themselves to old women gossiping on a Sunday afternoon at a gathering.. quite pathetic.... that is not the point of mathematical discussion...

i think people hate math because they don't understand it. if i don't understand something, then of course i won't like it... the hatred comes after many years of not understanding it.. even people who go to graduate school don't understand math, let alone the simpletons working in finance. i would say that you're on your way to understanding math when you feel that you are completely useless at it and have to resort to going to older books, a la Bourbaki, Lusin, etc...