Australian - Mathematician | July 17, 1975 -
I tend to change research direction every few years or so.
Terence Tao
ChangeResearchDirectionYearsFew
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.
PowerMemorySpaceThinkMatter
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.
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I recall being fascinated by numbers even at age three and viewed their manipulation as a kind of game.
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I am still very fond of Australia, but my life is now in Los Angeles.
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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.
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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.
GoodSchoolHigh SchoolEngineering
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.
EducationMathematicsOceanOver
Can you make fancy patterns of water that actually have some computation power? I'm betting that fluids are complex enough to do this.
PowerWaterEnoughYouComplexSome
What interests me is the connection between maths and the real world.
MeWorldConnectionRealReal World
If I experiment enough, I get a deeper understanding.
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If I don't understand something properly, every single component, it really bugs me.
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