“The Singular Mind of Terry Tao” is a good nytimes article if you’re interested in the difference between high school math and being a mathematician.
Related:
- Terry Tao’s weblog (reveals that LaTeX can be used in WordPress comments!)
3 thoughts on “Good article on becoming a mathematician”
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The challenge of someone who writes about math for a general audience is that he or she has to do so without using any math. The closest you can get are very watered down explanations of what a “prime” or “imaginary” number are, but you can’t actually use any equations or mathematical notation. This is like writing about music without notes (Beethoven’s Fifth – you play 3 short notes and then a longer, lower note) . It can be done but ultimately you are beating around the bush and you can’t really explain much.
Yeah! I was surprised to read that article too. Do Americans that are interested in (higher) math really need to be explained what prime and imaginary numbers are? We Europeans certainly learn that at school.
Suspicious, Americans can take college calculus classes in high school if they desire and many do. I would think that definition of prime is redundant for any reader of NY Times. What is considered to be rigorous mathematical proof is foreign even in many college math classes but there is a question how important it is outside formal construction of pure mathematics, maybe it is just a creation of subject bureaucracy. Not sure what this article tries to accomplish – compares Tao to straw man of Gauss (who many consider the biggest mathematical genius, while other mathematicians like other classical mathematicians). Article title ‘The Singular Mind of Terry Tao’ seems to somewhat contradict its contents: ‘‘super-normal’’ … “Most mathematicians tend to specialize, but Tao ranges widely”