The Mind of a Mathematician
I very much like that people like Tao are famous. It’s relatively good for the intellectual spirit and hopefully it inspires others.<p>However this fixation with his “extraordinary capacity”, scores, medals and accolades; I wish we could skip it.<p>Let’s talk about the awesome work and why it’s awesome. Let’s play through some of it: I’m relatively sure most people know nothing more about Tao than “he’s a genius”. What’s the point of that?<p>I think we’d be better off if we took the time to understand great work and let our appreciation of great people live through that.