/u/NovaNation21 9/9/14

Interview with Terence Tao

Professor of Mathematics at University of California - Los Angeles

Q: There are a lot of topics in olympiad math that a regular school curriculum will never
cover. A high school curriculum is lucky to end with calculus. As a professor do you think
topics like number theory, combinatorics, and complex algebra/geometry should be taught
in higher-level high school classes or just reserved for the students independently for these
olympiads?

A: The standard high school curriculum traditionally has been focused towards physics and
engineering. So calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra have always been the most
emphasized, and for good reasonthese are very important. There is now a trend over the rise
of computer science and also the life sciences, which have become more mathematical. Schools
are slowly transitioning to emphasize things like combinatorics, probability, and statistics. These
things are getting more important. Number theory less so because it has fewer
applicationscryptography is the only really big practical application of the subject. So
mainstream math education is focused on different topics. Most students who take math classes
arent going to be mathematicians. Theyre going to be engineers, statisticiansin many ways
thats the more important mission of math education. So its sort of complementary.

Math education has changed over the years. In the 19th century, they taught spherical
trigonometry because one of the biggest applications of mathematics was navigating the ocean.
This is no longer so relevant. So its great that we have these competitions and that we keep
some classical mathematics like Euclidean geometry and elementary number theory. In
mathematical research, its good to know these things. You will learn them eventually, especially
if you take a class in it. At some point you can just learn it yourself and go and read a book on it.
Its really easy now with the Internet, its amazing now. People ask me how I know so many
areas of mathematics. Mostly you just know a little bit and then you look up the rest. Its so
much easier now than when I was a graduate student. I mean you need a certain amount of base
mathematics so that you can learn everything else quickly. But once you have the foundation,
its fairly quick. So its great that we have the competitions. I think they complement the main
math education, but I dont think they need to replace it.

Q: What would you tell an aspiring or current mathematics major about the kind of jobs
available besides teaching?

A: Most people with Bachelors of Math dont go into academics so much. You would get a PhD
for that. Theres many things you can do with a math degree: actuarial science, finance,
computer graphics, and anything quantitative really. You can work in a lab. If you arent afraid
of equations or abstract thinking, its easy to pick up any kind of STEM subject. You can go into
electrical engineering and theres always scary equations like Maxwells Equations and so forth.
But if you have the basic math training you can pick this up. You can move very easily into
StatsI mean Stats is huge. You can do insurance and all kinds of medical things. Its a very
flexible major. Most people with math degrees are not called mathematicians, they might be
analysts. If you want to be an engineer, obviously your best route is to take engineering classes.
If you dont have mathematical background, the classes you take will help you train to analyze
existing systems and build things that havent been built before. If you want to design something
really new, at some point youll have to model what youre doing, which might be different from
previous models, and you have to do some mathematics somewhere.

Q: Do you find more fulfillment in teaching or researching?

A: They are complementary. You only really learn something when you can teach it to someone
else. If you have to do something like abstract geometry, you have to be able to do basic
geometry really quickly. After youve taught calculus a few times you can look at differential
equations and say oh, it should look like this, which would have taken like half an hour as a
student but now takes a few minutes. You need that speed in order to tackle the harder problems,
so it is complementary.

Q: What do you enjoy most about math?

A: When you finally figure out something thats bothered you. If theres something that looks
like you should be able to answer and you cant answer it immediately, it just sort of bugs you.
And when you figure out the trick that resolves it, then a light bulb goes off. So thats very
satisfying, when you finally get whats going on, as well as when you explain it to someone else
and you see the light bulb go on in their head.

Q: What is your favorite number or mathematical constant?

A: The funny thing about mathematics is that you dont work with regular numbers so much. I
never see a 37, I see n a lot of what I do involves a big number n that goes to infinity. Never
any specific number.

Q: Do you have any other interests besides math?

A: I used to have more. When you work and you have family, its tough. When I was younger I
used to watch a lot anime and play computer games and so forth, but I have no time for these
things anymore.

Q: Are you interested in seeing your two kids become mathematicians? Are you going to
push them at all in that direction?
A: Whatever they have the passion for. My son is 11 and he has some talent for math, but he
doesnt really have a passion for it. What he really likes is acting, theatre and video editing
actuallywhich is maybe what hell become, I dont know.

Q: What about prime numbers interests you so much?

A: Number theory is one of the things you can actually appreciate. I saw these through high
school and competitions, so I knew about all these numbers and conjecture theories very early, at
8 or 9. Ive always wanted to make progress in this area. Its not the most applied area of
mathematics. If you prove the twin-prime conjecture today, it wont have that much effect in
technology tomorrow. Well, it depends what is proved and how. In many ways, its the methods
of proof that are more important. [Conjectures] are just sort of benchmarks to keep score.

Q: Is there a result that you consider the most beautiful?

A: I dont think much in those terms. The funny thing is anything you prove yourself, you think
oh, that was a lot easier than I thought. You know, once you actually see it, you realize it
wasnt that hard after all.

Q: How did you learn to teach and what is your teaching philosophy?

A: Sink or swim basically. When I was a graduate student, I didnt teach, I was a grader. I
assisted one or two classes. When I first came to UCLA that was my first class. I had a mentor
teaching another session for the classthey do that for the first class. He showed me what kinds
of homework, midterms, and syllabi he used. When you start out, youre given a syllabus and a
textbook and basically told to use the textbookits not actually that difficult.

There were a couple things I had to learn. I remember the first exam I gave out I put a lot of
effort into designing very cute questions where the answer to the first question would be useful
in the second question, and so forth. I didnt realize this would be a nightmare to grade. When
each question has a single answer, youre either right or wrong. You dont want questions where
someone makes a mistake in the first step but everything else is correct, so you have to check. So
it took me a while to figure out what are good questions and that sort of thing. You should make
clear at the beginning what your policies are for homework. If youre vague you always get kids
that say, I didnt realize this midterm was worth this much. Can you reconsider it?

Q: What can teachers do to make kids like mathnot just computational math but the
ideas of math like problem solving and exploration?

A: It depends on the teachers style. Some teachers are really entertaining. You know, they tell
jokes. Not everyone can do that. Some can make really elaborate presentations and experiments.
Some are good at finding really relevant videos and things on the Internet. Sometimes making a
class more enjoyable or entertaining is not the same as making it more educational. I remember
once when I taught calculus, one of the sections was quadric surfaces, like ellipsoids, paraboloids
and so forth. So theres this thing called a hyperbolic paraboloid, and I wanted to demonstrate
this. It turns out that a Pringle has the shape of a hyperbolic paraboloid. So I brought in a pack of
Pringles to class and said, this is a hyperbolic paraboloid, this is what it looks like. I ate the
Pringle as I was writing equations on the board. Well many years later, I ran into someone on the
street who said, Oh, I know you. I took one of your classes. I forget what it was, but there was a
Pringle. So I thought, you didnt remember any of the math, but you remember the Pringle.
So it didnt really work.

Q: What do you hope to accomplish through your research? Do you have any specific
goals?

A: No really short-term objectives. There's always questions which Id love to solve (Riemann
Hypothesis, Navier Stokes, whatever). But usually these things are so out of reach. We
understand the tools that we have pretty well. We know that without an extra or original idea you
cant really answer them. We dont focus directly on these long-shot goals. A lot of the focus is
incremental. A lot of mathematicians liken mathematical research to climbing a cliff. Youre at a
certain point on the cliff, and your first goal is to get one foot higher, and you just keep doing
that. Every time you solve a problem, naturally other problems appear. What was extremely
difficult now just looks moderately difficult. You use all of your notes and get a sense of what is
a promising directionbasically anytime theres a phenomenon which looks interesting and you
cant explain it, but looks like you should be able to analyze it. Thats what you want to study.

Q: What do you feel are the 2 or 3 most important open problems are in mathematics?

A: Depends whether you weight them by how easy they are to solve. I mean if you solved P=NP,
it could have huge applications, but its so difficult to narrow down. Its hard to measure the
importance.

Q: Which of the millennium problems do you think we are furthest from solving? In 2007
you mentioned in a talk at UCLA that you expect a solution to P vs. NP to come last, with
the Riemann hypothesis just before it. Do you hold that same view today?

A: I would say so. These I think are decades before we can solve them for sure.

Q: What about Navier-Stokes?

A: So there I think we have a chance. That one I think we are closest to proving or disproving.
One direction [within the problem] might be solvable. A lot of conjectures are like this. Take the
Goldbach conjecture: every even number is the sum of two primes. If its false, it could be
disproven because if it turns out that some humongous number is not the sum of two primes after
you check all the possibilities, then youve disproven the Goldbach conjecture. But no one
believes that. In principle it could be easy to disprove. But probably not. So maybe theres
chance with Navier-Stokes, but its a longshot.
Q: You have three IMO appearances, and you won one of each medal, so you have
Olympiad experience. Do you notice anything different between how math contests are
now compared to how they were in the late 80s when you participated in them?

A: Im not involved in them anymore, but they look much more professional. It was really an
amateur thing. I mean people would train for maybe 2 weeks. Now there are some countries who
have been training for years and are very systematic where you study 50 years worth of
problems. Its become much more like a professional sport. Its like youth baseball; it starts off
amateur and eventually some of the professionals take over, which makes it different. In some
ways its less fun, in some ways its better. One nice thing though is that many other
competitions have sprung up. When I was a kid it was basically just the Olympiads and things
that fit into the Olympiads. Now theres these other activities too if you dont want to be so
competitive. Theres other things like Math Circles and other online websites where you can
discuss problems in friendly ways. So its more diverse.

Q: At IMO, why do you think that China, Russia, Japan, and the Koreas always seem to
win the unofficial team competition and win the most medals as a team, often with perfect
scores? Do you think this says anything about English-speaking cultures like Australia, the
US, and the UK and their emphasis on math education?

A: I think it's a cultural emphasis. Asian countries often place a larger premium on international
recognition on any sphere. In America, this is less important as America is a global leader in so
many areas, it doesnt matter as much to them. In many of these countries, theyre actually
trying to make them less competitive. There are many students who have over-trained. They go
and get three gold medals, but they sacrifice their regular education, spending years doing
nothing but working on these problems. They finish the Olympiad and theyre burnt out.
Theyre not properly trained, even to do a math degree or theyll be sick of maths by then if
thats what theyve been doing. Theres a balance. You can get a little obsessed with the medal
tallies. After a while its sort of pointless to optimize. Its sort of like the SATs. Getting a 600 or
something is pretty good. When you obsess about getting that perfect score, you start skipping on
your social activities and do nothing but squeeze those last few points, when it doesnt really
matter in the long run. Theres a great observation called Goodharts Law that basically says any
metric becomes useless once you start using it for control purposes. So the SAT, for example, is
a good general test of academic aptitude. But since its used so much for admission to college,
kids are trained and coached. They spend lots of time and effort, specifically to improve their
SAT score at the expense of a well-rounded education, to the point where [the SAT] may not be
such a good guide to general academic excellence, even though it used to be before students
started optimizing.

Q: Do you feel like just anyone with enough hard work and dedication can reach the level
of mathematics that you have, or do you think it requires a certain mental disposition that
you're born with in order to do the type of maths done at the IMO or in graduate studies?

A: It depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to be good, as opposed to obsessed with
getting a perfect score or being at the absolute top, or just doing decently. If you have the
enthusiasm, you also have to spend a lot of time. I think one of the things you have to do is you
have to play with the subject. When I was a kid, I just loved doing math on my own, I would try
to solve equationsit was a hobby. I would try to find the sum of the first n-cubes by myself.
Its not a very serious level of mathematics, but its only by tinkering with a subject that you
really get good at it. Same as anything, like building things. You need a certain baseline
intelligence and be able to think and write, but I think it is mostly actually your enthusiasm and
your time put in given the opportunity.

Q: What has been your opinion on the Polymath projects that you've been involved in, and
do you think similar kinds of semi-massively collaborative mathematics has a future?
A: I think well see more of them. For a long time theyre going to be a niche. There are certain
types of problems that they are very well suited for: problems which are very modular, that can
be split up into different pieces that a set of people can work on. You need a good leader who
can organize everything. There needs to be some clear measure of progress by members of your
group. It has to be accessible enough and interesting enough to get people involved. Theres a
critical mass, though. There are some projects where only about 3 people get involved and it gets
converted into normal, traditional collaboration. There are projects where you expect the answer
to come from a lot of little ideas rather than a few really big ideas. But I dont think well ever
solve the Riemann hypothesis by this sort of crowdsourcing thing, like lets get 1000 people
together, throw ideas around and see what sticks. Thats not how these problems are going to be
solved.

Q: What is your opinion on strong AI?

A: The funny thing about AI is that its a moving target. In the seventies, someone might ask
what are the goals of AI? And you might say, Oh, we want a computer who can beat a chess
master, or who can understand actual language speech, or who can search a whole database very
quickly. We do all that now, like face recognition. All these things that we thought were AI, we
can do them. But once you do them, you dont think of them as AI. It has this connotation of
some mysterious magical component to it, but when you actually solve one of these problems,
you dont solve it using magic, you solve it using clever mathematics. Its no longer magical. It
becomes science, and then you dont think of it as AI anymore. Its amazing how you can speak
into your phone and ask for the nearest Thai restaurant, and it will find it. This would have been
called AI, but we dont think about it like that anymore. So I think, almost by definition, we will
never have AI because well never achieve the goals of AI or cease to be caught up with it.

Q: Would you consider doing an AMA on reddit?

A: (Hes familiar with reddit and will look into it. Fingers crossed!)