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Terence Tao is just a really lucky person.

tester756 5y ago
Well, there's interesting take from him https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a-genius-to-do-maths/ https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-t... >Does one have to be a genius to do maths? >Does one have to be a genius to do mathematics? >The answer is an emphatic NO. In order to make good and useful contributions to mathematics, one does need to work hard, learn one’s field well, learn other fields and tools, ask questions, talk to other mathematicians, and think about the “big picture”. And yes, a reasonable amount of intelligence, patience, and maturity is also required. But one does not need some sort of magic “genius gene” that spontaneously generates ex nihilo deep insights, unexpected solutions to problems, or other supernatural abilities. >The popular image of the lone (and possibly slightly mad) genius – who ignores the literature and other conventional wisdom and manages by some inexplicable inspiration (enhanced, perhaps, with a liberal dash of suffering) to come up with a breathtakingly original solution to a problem that confounded all the experts – is a charming and romantic image, but also a wildly inaccurate one, at least in the world of modern mathematics. We do have spectacular, deep and remarkable results and insights in this subject, of course, but they are the hard-won and cumulative achievement of years, decades, or even centuries of steady work and progress of many good and great mathematicians; the advance from one stage of understanding to the next can be highly non-trivial, and sometimes rather unexpected, but still builds upon the foundation of earlier work rather than starting totally anew. (This is for instance the case with Wiles‘ work on Fermat’s last theorem, or Perelman‘s work on the Poincaré conjecture.)
- ryan93 5y ago
  This is the comment he left on that post. "It appears my previous comment may have have been interpreted in a manner differently from what I intended, which was as a statement of (lack of) empirical correlation rather than (lack of) causation. More precisely, the point I was trying to make with the above quote is this: if one considers a population of promising young mathematicians (e.g. an incoming PhD class at an elite mathematics department), they will almost all certainly have some reasonable level of intelligence, and some subset will have particularly exceptional levels of intelligence. " He acknowledges that serious talent exists.
  - tester756 5y ago
    > He acknowledges that serious talent exists. By writing my comment I meant that a serious talent is not enough Also: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/work-hard/ https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/work-hard/ >Relying on intelligence alone to pull things off at the last minute may work for a while, but, generally speaking, at the graduate level or higher it doesn’t. >One needs to do a serious amount of reading and writing, and not just thinking, in order to get anywhere serious in mathematics; contrary to public opinion, mathematical breakthroughs are not powered solely (or even primarily) by “Eureka” moments of genius, but are in fact largely a product of hard work, directed of course by experience and intuition. (See also “the cult of genius“.)

Well, there's interesting take from him https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a-genius-to-do-maths/ https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-t... >Does one have to be a genius to do maths? >Does one have to be a genius to do mathematics? >The answer is an emphatic NO. In order to make good and useful contributions to mathematics, one does need to work hard, learn one’s field well, learn other fields and tools, ask questions, talk to other mathematicians, and think about the “big picture”. And yes, a reasonable amount of intelligence, patience, and maturity is also required. But one does not need some sort of magic “genius gene” that spontaneously generates ex nihilo deep insights, unexpected solutions to problems, or other supernatural abilities. >The popular image of the lone (and possibly slightly mad) genius – who ignores the literature and other conventional wisdom and manages by some inexplicable inspiration (enhanced, perhaps, with a liberal dash of suffering) to come up with a breathtakingly original solution to a problem that confounded all the experts – is a charming and romantic image, but also a wildly inaccurate one, at least in the world of modern mathematics. We do have spectacular, deep and remarkable results and insights in this subject, of course, but they are the hard-won and cumulative achievement of years, decades, or even centuries of steady work and progress of many good and great mathematicians; the advance from one stage of understanding to the next can be highly non-trivial, and sometimes rather unexpected, but still builds upon the foundation of earlier work rather than starting totally anew. (This is for instance the case with Wiles‘ work on Fermat’s last theorem, or Perelman‘s work on the Poincaré conjecture.)

ryan93 5y ago
This is the comment he left on that post. "It appears my previous comment may have have been interpreted in a manner differently from what I intended, which was as a statement of (lack of) empirical correlation rather than (lack of) causation. More precisely, the point I was trying to make with the above quote is this: if one considers a population of promising young mathematicians (e.g. an incoming PhD class at an elite mathematics department), they will almost all certainly have some reasonable level of intelligence, and some subset will have particularly exceptional levels of intelligence. " He acknowledges that serious talent exists.
- tester756 5y ago
  > He acknowledges that serious talent exists. By writing my comment I meant that a serious talent is not enough Also: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/work-hard/ https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/work-hard/ >Relying on intelligence alone to pull things off at the last minute may work for a while, but, generally speaking, at the graduate level or higher it doesn’t. >One needs to do a serious amount of reading and writing, and not just thinking, in order to get anywhere serious in mathematics; contrary to public opinion, mathematical breakthroughs are not powered solely (or even primarily) by “Eureka” moments of genius, but are in fact largely a product of hard work, directed of course by experience and intuition. (See also “the cult of genius“.)