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As I read through this, I remind myself, there are some people that are so smart and in-depth within their field, that I have zero idea what any of the concepts

• Workaccount2 4y ago
  Going from know-nothing to "know-at-least-enough" in a few dense fields, I've found that the concepts, once you get them, are usually pretty plain and straightforward. It's the custom terminology, unique vernacular, and commonly used abstractions that can make it so hard to internalize initially.
• rrrrrrrrrrrr2 4y ago
  As I read through this, I just feel this great sense of relief that I switched from math into CS. I am just so glad I wasn't stupid enough to lock myself into a 6-10 year PhD/postdoc process, and I don't have to care about any of these tricks or existence proofs about technical constructions that will always exist only in theory. That being said, Tao works on twin primes; I don't really care about the means because I don't care about the end. There are other areas of math (geometry, etc.) which seem a lot more fun. But honestly why does anyone care enough about the twin prime conjecture to go through this pain, and what possible practical application could there be compared to algebra (cryptography) and geometry/topology (physics). And I am saying this as someone who took some graduate-level mathematics. I know some of what he's talking about. I'm just so overwhelmingly glad I don't have to care about any of it. Maybe Adderall could help me care, like it did for Erdos. Tao is obviously a genius, but to me he's an alien.