Quotes by Terence Tao - Page 1

I always liked numbers.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Numbers
Always Liked
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Mathematicians are fairly cheap.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Fairly
Cheap
Mathematicians
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Math research is more like a marathon.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Marathon
Math
Research
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Volume grows spatially slower than scaling.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Grows
Volume
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I don't like accepting things at face value.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Face Value
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If I experiment enough, I get a deeper understanding.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Deeper
Understanding
Experiment
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What interests me is the connection between maths and the real world.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Real World
World Me Real
Connection
Interests
Maths
The Real World
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I am still very fond of Australia, but my life is now in Los Angeles.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Australia
Life I Am My Life
Fond
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There might be a hidden structure in pi that we simply haven't discovered.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Structure
Simply
Discovered
Hidden
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Talent is important, but how one develops and nurtures it is even more so.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Develops
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I enjoy a good meal, a good vacation, or a good movie, much as anyone else would.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Movie
Vacation
Enjoy
Anyone
Anyone Else
Else
Good Meal
Meal
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If I don't understand something properly, every single component, it really bugs me.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Bugs
Single
Component
Properly
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When you're concentrating hard, hours can fly by, and it's just you and a math problem.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Concentrating
Math
Fly
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I don't have any magical ability. I look at a problem, play with it, work out a strategy.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Ability
Problem
Strategy
Work Out
Magical
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The accuracy of Wikipedia can be dodgy in some places, but in maths, it's really quite good.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Accuracy
Wikipedia
Maths
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I was never very good at school with... humanities... anything which was more a matter of opinion.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Matter
Opinion
School
Anything
Humanities
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When I was growing up, I knew I wanted to be a mathematician, but I had no idea what that entailed.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Mathematician
No Idea
Growing Up Up Wanted
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I recall being fascinated by numbers even at age three and viewed their manipulation as a kind of game.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Fascinated
Manipulation
Numbers
Recall
Viewed
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Education is a complex, multifaceted, and painstaking process, and being gifted does not make this less so.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Doe
Gifted
Process
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Unsolicited surprise requests from strangers are essentially guaranteed to be met with a negative response.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Negative
Stranger
Surprise
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In 1992, when I was 16, I moved to the United States to start working on my Ph.D. at Princeton University in New Jersey.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Jersey
New Jersey
Princeton
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I think one nice thing about mathematics is that we don't really have one prize that dominates all the others, like the Nobel prizes.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Nobel
Prize
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It was traditional to not actually cash the prizes that Erdos did award while he was alive. People usually framed the cheque instead.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Cash
Framed
Award
Cheque
Prizes
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Can you make fancy patterns of water that actually have some computation power? I'm betting that fluids are complex enough to do this.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Betting
Computation
Fancy
Patterns
Complex
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Ultimately you should follow advice not because someone tells you to, but because it was something that you already knew you should be doing.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Advice
Should
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When I was seven or eight, whenever I was getting too rowdy at night, my parents would give me a maths workbook to work on to quieten me down.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Give Me
Work Me Night
Maths
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... it can often be profitable to try a technique on a problem even if you know in advance that it cannot possibly solve the problem completely.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Math
Often Is
Trying
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If there is something that I should know how to do but don't, it bugs me. I feel like I have to sit down and work out exactly what the problem is.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Work Me Feel
Exactly What
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A lot of the math that I do, it's not sort of premeditated. I talk online or with a colleague, and I get interested, and I just follow where it leads.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Math
Online
Colleague
Follow
Leads
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I remember having this vague idea that what mathematicians did was that some authority, someone, gave them problems to solve, and they just sort of solved them.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Authority
Remember
Solve
Did
Idea
Gave
Having
Mathematicians
Problems
Vague Idea
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For me, I guess the main motivation is the satisfaction of finally understanding some tricky mathematical concept or phenomenon and then explaining it to others.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Explaining
Mathematical
Motivation
Phenomenon
Satisfaction
Tricky
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I have been lucky to find very good collaborators who have taught me a lot, have introduced me to several new fields of mathematics, or have shown me new insights.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Collaborators
Fields
Insights
Introduced
Several
Shown
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My life is more than just my work. I am a husband and a father and a proud citizen of two countries: my homeland of Australia and my adopted country here in the United States.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Adopted
Homeland
Life Work I Am
Life Work Father
Citizen
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Pointing out that countless great mathematicians had tried to solve the problem and failed before you came along is in particularly bad taste and should be avoided completely.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Problem
Should
Taste
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I often don't know what I'll be working on next year or a year from now. There is often a chance meeting, or something that I worked on 10 years ago suddenly becomes important again.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Next Year
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Most students who take math classes aren't going to be mathematicians. They're going to be engineers, statisticians - in many ways, that's the more important mission of math education.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Engineers
Math
Classes
Mission
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At a purely formal level, one could call probability theory the study of measure spaces with total measure one, but that would be like calling number theory the study of strings of digits which terminate.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Space
Numbers
Probability Theory
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I still remember the realization in college at Flinders University in Australia that mathematics was not just an abstract game of symbols but could be used as a tool to analyze and understand the modern world.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Abstract
Australia
College
Mathematics
Modern World
Realization
Remember
Symbols
University
Used
Understand
Analyze
Game
Could
Still
Tool
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Math education has changed over the years. In the 19th century, they taught spherical trigonometry because one of the biggest applications of mathematics was navigating the ocean. This is no longer so relevant.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Education
Ocean
Changed
Math
Relevant
Taught
Years
Applications
Biggest
Over
Longer
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The standard high school curriculum traditionally has been focused towards physics and engineering. So calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra have always been the most emphasized, and for good reason - these are very important.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Algebra
Calculus
Curriculum
Engineering
Equations
Focused
High School
Linear
Physics
Good Always Important
Differential
Emphasized
Good Reason
Towards
Standard
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It is very humbling to receive the Fields Medal. The words of a Fields Medallist carry a lot of weight within mathematics - for instance, in framing future directions of research - which means that I have to watch what I say more carefully now!
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Fields
Framing
Humbling
Instance
Medal
Research
Weight
Carefully
Carry
Directions
Receive
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Research sometimes feels like an ongoing TV series in which some amazing revelations have already been made, but there are still plenty of cliff-hangers and unresolved plotlines that you want to see resolved. But unlike TV, we have to do the work ourselves to figure out what happens next.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Ongoing
Plenty
Revelations
Tv Series
Unlike
Resolved
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One can think of any given axiom system as being like a computer with a certain limited amount of memory or processing power. One could switch to a computer with even more storage, but no matter how large an amount of storage space the computer has, there will still exist some tasks that are beyond its ability.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Processing
Storage
Tasks
Axiom
Switch
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You want to get to the top of the cliff. But that's not what you focus on immediately. You focus on the next ledge just beyond your reach, because you need to do one clever thing to get up there. And then, once you get there, you do it again. A lot of this is rather boring and not very glamorous. But you can't jump cliffs in a single bound.
Terence Tao / Mathematician
Clever
Focus
Glamorous
Next
Single
Once
Again
Beyond
Bound
Cliff
Immediately
Jump
Rather
There And Then
Top
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Terence Tao Quotes - Page 1

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