The irony is that this is being argued by person with the best documented genius in the history of mathematics. His official IQ of 230 remains the highest officially measured IQ in the world. He taught himself to read by age 2. He was taking Calculus at age 7. He remains the youngest person for any level of medal in the International Mathematics Olympiad. That doesn't quite convey it. The youngest person to earn a bronze in that competition was 10. Silver was 11. Gold was 12. All three records were set by Terrence Tao, who then didn't bother competing any more.
His success is comparable to any person in the history of mathematics. Yes I am including Euler, Gauss, and Erdös. Euler possibly covered a bigger breadth of math. Gauss created more fields. Erdös solved more problems. And Tao has made more progress in more hard problems that had stumped everyone else.
In https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-t... he argues that you do not have to be a genius to do first rate mathematics.
The irony is that this is being argued by person with the best documented genius in the history of mathematics. His official IQ of 230 remains the highest officially measured IQ in the world. He taught himself to read by age 2. He was taking Calculus at age 7. He remains the youngest person for any level of medal in the International Mathematics Olympiad. That doesn't quite convey it. The youngest person to earn a bronze in that competition was 10. Silver was 11. Gold was 12. All three records were set by Terrence Tao, who then didn't bother competing any more.
See https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/Terence-Tao-Mozart-of-Mat... for some more of his accomplishments.
His success is comparable to any person in the history of mathematics. Yes I am including Euler, Gauss, and Erdös. Euler possibly covered a bigger breadth of math. Gauss created more fields. Erdös solved more problems. And Tao has made more progress in more hard problems that had stumped everyone else.