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.However this fixation with his “extraordinary capacity”, scores, medals and accolades; I wish we could skip it.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?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.