Are people like Terence Tao born mathematical geniuses...

Are people like Terence Tao born mathematical geniuses? Or did they work hard to understand mathematics at a insanely young age? Or are they on the spectrum?

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they work hard and in some cases they are on the spectrum

Insanely gifted genetically + worked really fucking hard.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

To be someone like Terrence Tao, you gotta be/do all of those things

Bump for interest

This, also for every one who becomes well known, there are hundreds who burned out along the way.

All of the above

The genetic one on a much lesser extend and relevance.

>in b4 retards start claiming anybody can be Tao as along as they work hard enough

Practice and hard work

But you can learn everything Tao knows if you work hard. Probably not as fast though

Is Tao on the spectrum? I've heard he's a pretty normal/functional guy

He's an autistic savant according to Wikipedia, so yes.

Report the quote.

Never mind, it was his brother that had Savant Syndrome. Guess I should've looked a bit further into it rather than doing a 2-second Google search.

gifted + tutoring from young age + hard work throughout life

turns out if you want to get good at something, do it over and over and over again

who would've thought!

so what did he accomplish?

His books are pretty good, too.

Made me giggle. Not sure how many people from Veeky Forums come here.

World of Warcraft tier obsession, questions that keep you up at night, trial and error, and applying a science to real life will get your farther than most people.

This was quite motivating for me to read, thanks user.

it doesnt mean you can understand it to the same degree

sorry but intelligence isnt just the speed of which you absorb information, it is also the depth and complexity

*tips fedora*

...

>muh 10000 hours
Fuck this pop-sci bullshit

Isn't most of his brothers or relatives extremely gifted? Like an user said earlier, his brother had savant syndrome. Plus I think two or more of them participated on the International Mathematics Olympiad.

stay mad, lel

>Isn't most of his brothers or relatives extremely gifted?
>Isn't most of his brothers
>Isn't

Aren't*

Terry Tao go to where he is through hard work.

Arnold Schwarzenegger attained his peak body in the early 80s through hard work as well.


However it is very obvious that the thing separating them from other people is only hard work.

Five-star post.

why not?

well user it's kind of like how no matter how many hours a day you spend practicing in a pool you'll never swim as well as Michael phelps

Well, you see, user, I have to blame the mystical "genetics" so I have an excuse to be a lazy shit. I hope you understand.

mathematics is not swimming

>Terence Tao
nice meme ;^)

Can a person with downs syndrome become a top tier mathematician if they hit the books hard enough?

He obviously wasn't born like that just because the brain doesn't develop this way. But he might've acquire some arithmetic abilities at the age of 3, just like Gauss did. At this age brain is extremely good at learning so if you continue you can have some interesting changes in personality compared to other kids.

But it's not that rare as you might think and in fact many children develop something like this but both Terrence and Gauss had someone to support them and lead them to the scientific community from the early age like 9 years.

Talking here about working hard is pretty irrelevant as anywhere else. People always work and many work had, that just doesn't make sense, what makes sense is WHAT you're working on and how. And there only genetics/abilities + social environment plays a role.

pic

Nigger the average 3 year old shits himself is constantly drooling and can't hold attention to anything longer than a few minutes.

The fact that he was interested and capable of doing arithmetic at such a young age makes it very clear he is exceptional.

Producing geniuses of Taos caliber isn't as simple as exposing children to enough math at a young age and if it were we'd see it happen a lot more often.

>if it were we'd see it happen a lot more often.
Would it? Consider that the majority of parents are retarded.

Exactly. And retarded parents beget retarded children...

Actually it's not that rare I even know child like this irl, autistic children are mostly like this but not only them. The brain is actually really good at learning in 3-4 year olds. However most of such prodigies begin and end just with extraordinary calculating skills and don't get to continue with real science.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Polgár

>smart guy really good at chess forces his daughters to play chess and they turn out to be great at chess

Cool get back to me when the son of a day laborer becomes really good at something just because he was exposed to it since a young age.

Well, his name was Gauss

Wikipedia is unreliable and biased, propoganda, pro-materialism.

Cool now provide proof exposing children to math at a young enough age and forcing them to work hard at it always results in geniuses.

Protip: you cant genius is genetics

how can you be that good with math but have shit handwriting?

>now provide proof exposing children to math at a young enough age and forcing them to work hard at it always results in geniuses.
I have no interest in doing so especially because I think "hard work" is the most stupid meme in education. All geniuses had connection to some kind of academics and had a good environment to develop before they did something significant.

>you cant genius is genetics
What a bullshit. If it would be genetics, it would be both far more frequent and inheritable which is not the case.

Prodigies that work out are actually rare. Burn out, mental disorder side effects, developmental problems. So yeah they have a lot of talent but its not a guarantee.

Dude you're on Veeky Forums half of us are mathematicians with down syndrome

terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a-genius-to-do-maths/

>what are epigenetics
>terence taos story is literally born good at math and then worked his ass off
>WHICH O NE ID IZT GUyS?!/!12/!

You literally don't even deserve a fucking response, because you'd know if you read the biography of any great mind or genius, but I'll help you out since you seem like you might be mentally handicapped (probably on that spectrum you were referring to) and I feel pity for you.

If we can observe and prove a noticeable difference in genetic expression among life-long athletes that makes them better suited for their specific activity, it is not unthinkable that such a thing would exist for those who focus on using their brain instead of their body.

Regardless, there is no such thing as nature vs. nurture, because the two are not mutually exclusive and they do not exist in opposition. A person like Terence Tao probably has a genetic predisposition for [THING] AND has been working diligently since their youth to hone that edge.

You don't become Terence Tao by simply being born that way or without nurturing the talent. You need both.

Well I am mentally handicapped (I have trouble understanding people and how they function etc) but thanks for the response.

>If we can observe and prove a noticeable difference in genetic expression among life-long athletes that makes them better suited for their specific activity, it is not unthinkable that such a thing would exist for those who focus on using their brain instead of their body.
because people get butthurt at their genetic limitations and always play the "if I only worked hard enough" card as they slip into a life of mediocrity

Why do you avoid the education availability and fruitful environment for development part? It is perhaps the only thing that is common for all geniuses' biographies I know (and I know a lot).

And steroids in Arnie's case

This is true. I was one of those children that was on the spectrum and called gifted. I was extremely talented at arts and mathematics. I was extremely antisocial and reserved though. Moving to another country completely fucked that over because of the culture shock, which took me around 10 years to get used to.

Yes they are obviously born that way, but I'm not sure it's just or only raw intelligence that allows people to make fundamental contributions to science.

What I mean is, there are people who can understand all physics and math that is presented to them in a profound way, but never actually make contributions to the field themselves, just like there are people who will make contributions who do not.

Tao is an exceptional individual, exceptionally high IQ and deep insight into mathematics beyond pure speed of learning, which is essentially what IQ is.

terence is actually quite stupid which you can tell from his recent blog about politics. he is good at math because he is obsessed about it. but in the end he has contributed nothing of value to society

I don't think IQ is genetic in the same way people generally think it is.

I think the genetic component of IQ is related the metabolic efficiency of your brain as well as how good your brains immune system is. High IQ people have good brain metabolism, and low brain inflammation.

I think the basic machinery of the brain is pretty standard across people. The ability of your brain to support more dense synaptic connections is largely a result of the metabolic capacity of your brain.

>iq isn't genetic except it is
u wot m8

>I don't think IQ is genetic in the same way people generally think it is.
>way people generally think it is.

can you read breh?

I have a theory that most highly intelligent people are too idealistic to make worthwhile political contributions

>intelligence
>idealism
a truly intelligent person would not be an idealist but a realist

Einstein was a pacifist

what's context?

>claims
provide evidence that he is a pacifist and no evidence in what way he meant it
provide evidence that he was truly intelligent

People can be intelligent in different domains. Don't expect some genius prodigy in the domain of physics to espouse anything other than "DUDE EQUALITY LMAO" when discussing economics if he has no education in the field.

This is just an example, ofc.

intelligence is intelligence

specific intelligence is a meme. that's called talent, not intelligence

Then Terrence Tao has talent, not intelligence.

then I guess we came to an agreement

let me add real quick:

I am sure Tao has also spent a shitton of hours doing what he does. math is not just something that has to come from birth. math can also be something trained and learned. it does not matter how talented you are. without hard work and a lot of training that talent will go to waste

Ulam had shit eyesight. Look into that.

Arnold also had good genetics and used steroids. His peak was mid 70s.

sometimes

Because his brain thinks faster than he can talk or write

>Cool now look up examples of this contorted phenomenon I just made up and in which I do not even believe for me

Terry disagrees :^)

the past seems so uncomfy

Which you develop from consistent exposure to the material you're working with.

Malcolm Gladwell has a BA in history and had to drop out of his Master's program. I wouldn't take anything what he says at face value.

As the story goes, Terry was teaching other children math by the age of two. Unless you come close to that level of mental maturity that young, no amount of hard work will make you a genius like him.

That said, a finite and reasonable amount of hard work can make you a collaborator and/or respectable peer of his (and people like him, in whatever field you decide to pursue).

>That said, a finite and reasonable amount of hard work can make you a collaborator and/or respectable peer of his (and people like him, in whatever field you decide to pursue).
bs there's a hard cut off that prevents most people from studying mathematics at the graduate level in a meaningful way and it's generally accepted as having an iq of 115

>iq
>generally accepted

IQ is generally accepted in non-brainlet areas. So you might not have seen IQ around too much ;-)

Contest iq all you want but it's pretty apparent most people are too dull to study math at the graduate level in any meaningful way no matter how many man hours they invest into it

Tao literally believes John "current year" Oliver has deep political insight

Someone of Tao's stature isn't going to risk his comfy professor job in a politically correct world of academia just to bash current year man

Explain Ramanujan

Had math professors as parents, meaning he was already gifted genetically and had an excellent support system for learning math.
That being said, despite the economic advantages he still had to work fucking hard to get there. If that wasn't true, people like Ramanujan wouldn't exist.

Most mathematicians throughout history had parents who were academics and took interest in their kid's education by teaching them themselves or hired tutors. They then worked hard and had a passion for solving problems (like Don Knuth winning competitions when he was 13). The key is working hard, like Isaac Newton spending a week re-reading a text line by line so he could understand it.

Look up the Cambridge math tripos requirements. Anybody here can get in, excelling in highschool math isn't difficult but can you spend 12hrs a day for 3-4 years doing it F/T. That's hard work and discipline.

I think Terrence Tao is a (natural) genius who also worked really, really hard. I don't think he has autism.

They are born with it.

Just like Phelps was born with the body of a dolphin, this guy was born with a brain for mathematics. To him, math is as easy as shitposting on 4babies.