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Article on Terry Tao at UCLA


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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,’’ he said in a lilting Australian accent. ‘‘I sort of imagined a committee would hand me problems to solve or something.’’ But it turned out that the work of real mathematicians bears little resemblance to the manipulations and memorization of the math student. Even those who experience great success through their college years may turn out not to have what it takes. The ancient art of mathematics, Tao has discovered, does not reward speed so much as patience, cunning and, perhaps most surprising of all, the sort of gift for collaboration and improvisation that characterizes the best jazz musicians. Tao now believes that his younger self, the prodigy who wowed the math world, wasn’t truly doing math at all. ‘‘It’s as if your only experience with music were practicing scales or learning music theory,’’ he said, looking into light pouring from his window. ‘‘I didn’t learn the deeper meaning of the subject until much later.’’

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/magazine/the-singular-mind-of-terry-tao.html?action=click&contentCollection=magazine&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=1

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I wonder if the same could be said about a number of subjects.  Learning to  understand biological processes is very different than working as a research biologist?  Working as a lawyer is very different from working as a law professor?

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I wonder if the same could be said about a number of subjects.  Learning to  understand biological processes is very different than working as a research biologist?  Working as a lawyer is very different from working as a law professor?

 

It's true in most fields.

 

I'm glad to hear this context, and also appreciative of the fact that a few folks (e.g., TT, MathCamp) focus on the math, and not the competition.  Competition math has extraordinarily little to do with successful research.  Math is a creative art, not a clerical exercise.

 

Someday, it would be nice for schools to treat it as such, but I doubt I'll ever see it.

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I agree with the sentiments in this article of course.  I would mention however that competitive math is as much fun for these kids as competitive sports is for children and adults.  Thus it helps magnetize them to the subject and give them social validation for what they are good at.  My own high school e.g. helped validate us nerds by putting our math trophies in the same display case with the basketball trophies. 

 

Most of the brilliant kids I have taught enjoy these contests and much prefer solving contest problems on their own to being taught canned material, even interesting material.  So although competing in contests is a very diferent activity from what they do later as research mathematicians, it seems to be a common part of their experience, and serves to keep them interested until they are ready to branch out on their own. 

 

Rather I think it is learning that needs to be less competitive.  Perhaps it is not so much the competitive part of these contests that matters as the challenge. These kids are not challenged in school and they like trying themselves against hard interesting problems.  So the distinction I notice between contests and classroom learning is the kid attempts the contest problems on his/her own, instead of just sitting and being spoonfed in class.  One can try to adapt clasroom teaching to include this sort of independent behavior, possibly beneficially.

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One thing that I've found is that my math club kids enjoy tackling the contest-type problems as a group. It's not the chance to win prizes, it's the challenge of the whole thing. I will also say that one thing that sold DD on wanting to go to the school she has decided to attend was that they have a trophy case of MathCounts, Science Olympiad, Lego League, Debate, and academic trophies that aren't tucked off in a back corner, with the athletic trophies being front and center, which is the case in every high school she's done competitions, talent search testing, or dance clinics at-she has actually made an effort in many schools to find the academic trophies, and usually it's pretty tough. Seeing that evidence that her "sports" are valued and celebrated was very powerful to her-even though she has no plans to be a mathematician.

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I really like the fact that the article tried to give a more complete sense of what he has gone through. The part about his problems in grad school is not usually highlighted when stating that he started his phd at 17. It's really neat to see how well he pushes for collaborative work in math.

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Thanks SQ, that was an interesting read. :thumbup1:

What I really liked was that the article busted some general myths and misconceptions surrounding prodigies- that they are weird/like sheldon cooper (Tao is described as affable and normal in behaviour). Or that they don't struggle (Tao experienced failure). Or that they cannot collaborate or usually work alone. (Tao/Erdos are huge collaborators).

 

 

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