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Work Hard (2007)
Every mathematician worthy of the name has experienced … the state of lucid exaltation in which one thought succeeds another as if miraculously… this feeling may last for hours at a tim…
Terence Tao
Updates on my research and expository papers, discussion of open problems, and other maths-related topics. By Terence Tao
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Visit terrytao.wordpress.com → RSS feedOn Hacker News Jan 2010 – Nov 2026
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Masterclass on mathematical thinking
About a year ago, I was contacted by Masterclass (a subscription-based online education company) on the possibility of producing a series of classes with the premise of explaining mathematical ways…
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Ask yourself dumb questions and answer them (2020)
Don’t just read it; fight it! Ask your own questions, look for your own examples, discover your own proofs. Is the hypothesis necessary? Is the converse true? What happens in the classical sp…
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Why are we even doing all this?
[This is a guest post by Rikab Gambhir. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.] First, they came for the artists, and I did not speak out…
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There's more to mathematics than rigour and proofs (2007)
The history of every major galactic civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Wh…
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What should we tell our students?
[This is a guest post by Álvaro Lozano-Robledo. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.] TL;DR: Keep calm and carry on studying math. I wo…
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Don’t prematurely obsess on a single “big problem” or “big theory”
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. (Susan Ertz, “Anger in the Sky”) There is a particularly dangerous occupational haz…
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After Math
[This is a guest post by Silvia De Toffoli and Eamon Duede. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.] Silvia De Toffoli (University School …
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Be sceptical of your own work (2009)
An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field. (Niels Bohr) If you unexpectedly find a problem solving itself almost effortlessly, and you can’t quite …
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