Talk:Terence Tao

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard. If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

This  level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Biography: Science and Academia This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography This article is supported by the science and academia work group. Mathematics High‑priority This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mathematics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of mathematics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MathematicsWikipedia:WikiProject MathematicsTemplate:WikiProject Mathematicsmathematics High This article has been rated as High-priority on the project's priority scale. Australia Mid‑importance Terence Tao is within the scope of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.AustraliaWikipedia:WikiProject AustraliaTemplate:WikiProject AustraliaAustralia Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Need help improving this article? Ask a LibrarianWhat's this? at the National Library of Australia. The Wikimedia Australia chapter can be contacted via email to helpwikimedia.org.au for non-editorial assistance.

Text and/or other creative content from this version of Dispersive PDE Wiki was merged into Terence Tao with this edit on 3 June 2007. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

I fail to see how this is unreliable. It has the proof right there. ^[1] --86.173.167.16 (talk) 18:14, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it said that the preprint claimed to proof the existence of arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions? This implies to me that there is reason to believe that the proof is wrong. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:00, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Proofs can take awhile to be accepted. If they released the proof in 2004 then if it's ot fully accepted yet that's normal.--T. Anthony 06:31, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it doesn't matter anymore as someone has changed the wording to not say "claimed", but anyway, Tao's webpage lists the preprint as having been accepted for publication to the Annals. So using such careful language at this point can be considered being overly skeptical. --C S (Talk) 12:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could he be considered an Australian still? Please help us at Talk:Chinese_Australian#Tereance_Tao. enochlau (talk) 11:11, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I hope this is acceptable, but on his website it says Although both my parents are Chinese (hence my name), I consider myself primarily an Australian.--T. Anthony 19:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He is supposedly getting a Fields Medal later this year; but this can't go in the article at this point. Charles Matthews 08:12, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. This is starting to remind me of the Apple-related pages like iPod. Anybody taking bets? --C S (Talk) 09:56, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whoever bet it was true wins...I don't know something.[1][2][3][4]. Also he is the youngest winner?--T. Anthony 12:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I remembered Jean-Pierre Serre was a young winner and indeed he won at 28. Not sure if he's the youngest or not, but younger than Tao.--T. Anthony 12:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article says Tao is 31. By the way - welcome back! Jpe|ob 12:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was sincere in leaving and my page still has "Former:Wikipedian" on it. I consider that accurate in a way as I no longer think Wikipedia is useful in design or execution. I don't consider myself a Wikipedian anymore. However, to my dismay, I do still find it fun on occasion.--T. Anthony 13:57, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"...the most important award for younger mathematicians." -- What's the most important award for older mathematicians? Stateful 01:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, I get it, you have to be under 40 to get the Fields Medal. Stateful 01:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are several lifetime achievement awards, but traditionally, for awards purely in mathematics (in general), the Wolf Prize in Mathematics and the Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement are probably the most prestigious. The Abel Prize is also such an award and very high-profile, but is fairly new compared to the others. --C S (Talk) 17:43, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not questioning Tao's qualities and feats, it could still be noted somehow that in being the youngest IMO participant or the youngest gold medal winner, the country one represents is a considerable factor (i.e. most top performance countries would not select an 11-year-old student, however good s/he be; PR China never selects a student before his/her final year a.f.a.i.k.)

I'm sorry but how does the fact that Tao is the youngest winner have anything to do with China's IMO selection process? Who cares what China's IMO selection process is or any other country's selection process is? If China is stupid enough to discriminate by age instead of by score, then tough luck. 66.171.76.210 05:41, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He is one of only two children in the history of the Davidson's Study of Exceptional Talent program that have achieved a score of 700 or greater on the SAT math section while just 8 years old (he scored a 760).

Who is the other one? Just curious to know if that other exceptional child also turned out to be a world-class mathematician. Robert@124.106.13.142 11:20, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the great Vladimir Drinfeld won an IMO gold for the USSR, but he was about 17 or so.Blnguyen | rant-line 02:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I find the current picture in the lead rather tawdry. It's better to have his photo that is in the later part of the article. --C S (Talk) 17:43, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, ok it seems somebody has now put both pictures at the top. But I think if we just have the portrait photo at the top, it can be larger. I'm not convinced the timeline picture is really that great and perhaps we should just not include it at all. --C S (Talk) 17:47, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should keep his Fields Medal portrait, but larger. The timeline image strikes me as a bit tacky. It also doesn't seem right to emphasize the early age of his achievements over their intrinsic depth. Most people don't win a Fields Medal at any age, prodigy or not. Etale 18:23, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What ever happened to Terence's portrait? We need to show the face of the boy genius, geeky or not.

Its nice to have their family member in chinese names, but there should be Hanyu Pinyin and also cantonese pronounciation as a guide.

just a thought

--Visik 11:33, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Chinese name should be removed, as he is Australian (and American?), not Chinese. At most, he is a Chinese-Australian. Albert Einstein does not have a Hebrew version of his name, nor does Michael Dukakis have a Greek version of his name. I agree with the following arguments presented in Eric Shinseki's talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Eric_Shinseki#Use_of_Japanese_written_form_of_his_name To include his Chinese name demonstrates a bias toward emphasizing the ancestry of people of Asian race.

There have been a couple of edits (some by me) changing how the Fields Medal is described in the lead section. I've seen the following texts:

• This [i.e., the Fields Medal] is equivalent to the Nobel Prize for mathematics.
• This is generally considered to be the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for mathematics.
• The Fields Medal is an award for young mathematicians, which includes a small monetary gift, and is awarded once every four years.
• The Fields Medal is widely viewed as the top honour a mathematician can receive.
• The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to young mathematicians. (the current version)

I think the most important point is to stress exactly how prestigious the Fields is, which is why I prefer the fourth version (which uses the text from Fields Medal). The current version fails to make this point; the fact that it is awarded to young mathematicians (where young in fact means below 40) is in my opinion of lesser importance. I could live with the first two versions, except that Fields Medal explains that it is in fact not equivalent to the Nobel Prize; perhaps we should change it to "The Fields Medal is the equivalent in prestige of the Nobel Prize for mathematics"? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 02:12, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why the recent anonymous editor considers it more informative to describe the Fields medal as "an award for young...". Makes it sound like some minor award for some yet-to-be-tenured mathematician. I would go by the fact that articles don't start describing the medal like this, for, I expect, the same reasons as you mention.

I prefer the fourth version also. I don't think a comparison to the Nobel is warranted. One could even argue that the Fields prestige is actually far greater (whatever that means). --C S (Talk) 08:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I don't think it is important to stress exactly how prestigious the Fields Medal is. Most people know how prestige the Fields Medal is. Some even agrue that Fields Medal is more prestige than the Nobel Prize. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 09:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is no question that the Fields medal is more prestigious than a Nobel prize, but this need not be mentioned explicitly, a link to the Fields medal page suffices. A text comparison to the Nobel prize is appropriate but not essential. It's incorrect to say "young mathematician" anyplace associated to the prize, well 40 is not that young. Anyone who reads the Fields medal page will realize the restriction to 40 make the prize much harder to obtain.

What ever happened to Terry's portrait? We should use the one from his Fields Medal awards ceremony. The previous one I agree makes him look too geeky. In real life he looks much more butch. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.9.129.164 (talk • contribs) 00:48, 30 November 2006

You should be more specific. What picture from the ceremony should we be using? Does "the previous one" refer to the photo of somebody else that you added?

You should also participate in the discussion about the description of the Fields Medal above before changing it. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 01:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the link to the photo of Terence in action. I feel it shows his passion for mathematics, and shows him in action in the classroom. http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/Aisenstadt/Tao/Tao/images/3.TerenceTao.jpg

Terry is a real macho man in real life. I remember seeing pictures of him wall climbing and mud wrestling. I will try and find those. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.7.169 (talk) 12:59, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is this really so notable a nickname? It appears to me that Garnett (UCLA) compared him to Mozart, a few newspapers picked up the "mozart of maths" title, and now somebody added it prominently to the article in the belief that this is a notable nickname. --C S (Talk) 01:28, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's also my impression, so I removed it (again). By the way, why is this article in Category:Calculating prodigies? I can't find anything in the article about his being particularly good at mental arithmetic. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 18:51, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As Tao has become more popular among the media, his nickname has also gained a lot more popularity. Virtually every popular science magazine (and Masterclass) introduces him through his nickname. Ramanujaner (talk) 13:37, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

He beat my by 20 points even when I was 11 year old. I always thought I was good at math =P

Keep in mind, this was the pre 1995 SAT, in which it was extremely difficult to score above 700, much more difficult than it is now. Back then, only one or two people in a couple of years would recieve perfect scores. Knowing this, that score almost passes belief.--Hypergeometric2F1(a,b,c,x) 00:20, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsense. Back in 1993, I got 800 (as an old man of fifteen), and I would be extremely surprised if this turned out to be uncommon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.16.204.78 (talk) 14:26, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the claim of extreme difficulty seems far-fetched. I recall when colleges were sending out their recruiting junk in the mid 1990s, MIT had data for their entering classes for the several previous years, and it seemed a large number had 800s in math (they also bragged about how many with 800 they turned away...) --C S (talk) 05:41, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lol! I don't think it's appropriate to measure genius according to a mere test/IQ test. I read about lots of unusually high IQ super smart child prodigies who failed to produce groundbreaking results. So why look at his childhood? Look at him now and his RESEARCH work, and btw I got to PERSONALLY speak with him when he visited UNSW on 16th sep. Could understand 2.5% of what he said Breath of the Dying (talk) 12:02, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think this article should be improved. This is the biography of a brilliant mathematician. This article can achieve GA status. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 09:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article is one of a number selected for the early stage of the trial of the Wikipedia:Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue are being considered for level 1 pending changes protection.

The following request appears on that page:

Many of the articles were selected semi-automatically from a list of indefinitely semi-protected articles. Please confirm that the protection level appears to be still warranted, and consider unprotecting instead, before applying pending changes protection to the article.

Comments on the suitability of theis page for "Pending changes" would be appreciated.

Please update the Queue page as appropriate.

Note that I am not involved in this project any much more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 00:17, 17 June 2010 (UTC).[reply]

The article currently says

His father told the press that at the age of two, during a family gathering, Tao attempted to teach a 5-year-old child mathematics and English.

For what it's worth, Prof. Tao briefly discussed that story on his blog. He said:

That particular story about myself seems to have grown in the retelling. I personally don’t remember it, but as I understand it, I was trying to explain to some slightly older kids how to count, using number blocks. I suppose this could be called “teaching mathematics”, but not of a particularly advanced nature.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to change "mathematics" to "counting". 24.220.188.43 (talk) 05:30, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's completely subjective what "single most famous contribution" is. This should be removed, but LJosil keeps reverting edits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.1.16.192 (talk) 16:34, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article was last edited by LJosil, yet I cannot find the phrase "single most famous contribution". Are you sure you're not looking at an old version? Rivertorch (talk) 17:06, 2 April 2012 (UTC) Added: For the record, the last edit restored content that was removed by an unregistered editor using a misleading edit summary. It did not contain the phrase in question. Rivertorch (talk) 17:08, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the reason why I keep reverting these edits is because the edits have nothing to do with contributions, famous or otherwise. In short, whoever is doing this editing is lying in the edit summary. LJosil (talk) 00:31, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's possible that they're just very confused. If the misleading summaries from multiple IPs continue, the article should probably be semiprotected. I'd really like to hear back from IP 67.1.16.192 who opened this thread, though. Rivertorch (talk) 04:39, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Tao began to teach high school calculus at Garfield High School after attending calculus courses when he was only seven years old" how is it possible for an eight year old to teach at a high school? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.81.4.195 (talk) 05:43, 30 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you do a quick Google search, you will soon find quite a few websites that this man is, as of July 2016, the individdual who has the world's highest IQ,with an IQ of over 200. Should this be included in this article?Vorbee (talk) 15:36, 3 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Terence Tao. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110607044934/http://www.science.org.au/reports/documents/2008anrep.pdf to http://www.science.org.au/reports/documents/2008anrep.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 13:03, 24 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The short description says: Australian-American mathematician and astrophysicist. I am surprised by this characterization. The opening sentence of the article say that "Terence Chi-Shen Tao ... is an Australian-American mathematician." In the article, the substring "astrophysic" occurs only once, and only to describe that Professor Tao's mother has a degree in astrophysics. Unless someone can explain to me why and how he is an astrophysicist, I am going to delete that from the short description in a few days' time. -- Roger Hui (talk) 17:29, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

He is definitely not an astrophysicist. Tao sometimes gives public lectures on the cosmic distance ladder, which somebody probably interpreted to mean that he does astrophysics. I've deleted it from the description. Gumshoe2 (talk) 19:52, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I would say he is an Australian. He works in America and has citizenship perhaps. Doesn't make him American. You can also mention his ancestry in the start of his bio if you want to shower praise on all countries involved 124.171.82.85 (talk) 09:24, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. Please provide absolute proof that his son chose to change his name to Riley Tao.

Thanks. 73.92.67.207 (talk) 09:26, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Should we note that his brith name is William? I don't realy know how relevant info about him is. If we decide that it is relevant, we could mention that he is 20 years old (this claim must be dobble-checked) and has taken machine learning classes.

Also, I had a conversation with the guy who edited that in, which you can see here. Felixsj (talk) 10:59, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

I am the firstborn child of Terence Tao, and my name is Riley. What proof of this fact would suffice to remove my deadname from this page? The New York Times podcast, as well as several publications in Cast of Wonders, Reckoning, Seize the Press, etc are written under my name, but I recognize that because they do not specifically link me to Terence Tao they may not be sufficient proof. Would you like me to request that my father write something on his blog confirming my name, or would that not qualify as a source? (I vaguely recall something about "original research" not being a valid Wikipedia source, but I am fairly new to this and have an incomplete understanding of what that entails.) Meowcats734 (talk) 21:56, 22 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why should we care? why is this even put on wiki? Your pronouns aren't even mentioned... 178.24.189.43 (talk) 22:43, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd rather have my name accurately represented, which it currently is. Meowcats734 (talk) 22:46, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The article says she is Chinese-American. This is not true. She is Korean-American. I don't have any evidence for this, so I think that the article shouldn't mention her ethnicity unless someone can find a source. 134.173.92.3 (talk) 16:40, 23 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you think that she is not Chinese-American? Several sources claim her to be Chinese-born (although none of them are reliable). Felixsj (talk) 14:07, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The redirect Dispersive PDE Wiki has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 December 5 § Dispersive PDE Wiki until a consensus is reached. Jay 💬 08:40, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]