I just released a new video about another exam taken by Terence Tao, this time it's one that he nearly failed: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hLGgp8RivKyvYmQ.html

"By 21, he had his PhD .." I am gonna sleep to forget

I think his parents and family deserve a lot of praise for helping him reach his full potential. Even if you were as brilliant as Terrance, your environment may not give you access to enough literature or other sources of knowledge to learn at that pace.

I love how he simply says, "I don't know." It shows honest he is and pure.

It's cool to see that his learning was self-motivated, rather than pressure from parents.

This is the kid that i wanted to be but nintendo got me first

I took a class under Terence Tao at UCLA. It’s interesting how many of his explanations were very visual, and he would often describe how he just “sees” the solutions to the problems, so his approach definitely evolved. His exams were impossible also and heavily curved.

It’s almost hilarious to see how advanced he was at 8 years old, like watching an alien being progressing at 10x the rate of a normal human.

I saw him speak at UCLA where he was a professor, and that too about astronomy and the geometries of the movement heavenly bodies. One of my friends had actually worked with him, he is into some really arcane pure math and analytics right now. When I asked about Terence, my friend just said "he knows way too much". Always a fan of your content and regards from India.

Q: What is a field? Age 7 me: A field is where grass grows and we play football also...

-What is a field? TT: I don't know. -What is a Field's medal? TT: I'll get back to you on that.

I am impressed, he was doing second year A Level Maths at 7 years old, normally for a gifted mathematician at 17 years old.

Funny thing about him saying "I don't know" when asked about fields is that it's probably one of the best answers you could give about it.

I like how this mentions the time that TT put into studying. While clearly a genius, part of his rapid success comes from enjoying studying and learning new math for 3+ hours a day.

22 years old, just getting to calculus now, and i'll say that this wasn't discouraging at all for me. If anything it was encouraging to see that math doesn't care about age, just your willingness and ability to learn it. While most of my peers have already finished well past where I am currently, I still find joy and excitement being introduced to this new world of information and possibilities. Maybe that child like curiosity has been sparked once again.

I loved the way you presented this person, with examples, and a very specific path that he took!.. thanks... that actually motivated me!

Very lucky man to be exposed to high-level math from an early age while having brilliant parents.

I got way too excited for being able to answer the question young Mr. Tao missed at 7 years old. I suppose we have to take our victories wherever we can find them!

it is interesting to note that TT has 2 younger brothers Nigel and Trevor, also very agile with mathematics, one being a 2 time bronze medal winner at the international Mathematic olympiad, and the other being an international chess master. i would have liked to see how their parents inspired them and made Home such a place to flourish

It was interesting to listen to this and your voice is very calming and soothing which actually helped me relax.

you read so gently it gave me nostalgia to english class and you put this in simple terms even i can watch subbedd

Is it just me ... or does anyone else like how this guy's initials are TT which can be written as π ...

For the 1's problem, here's my very simple solution: write 00001 .. 99999 using all digits including 0. You wrote a total of 100,000 * 5 digits, and all digits appear the same amount of times, so there are 500,000/10 = 50,000 of each. Writing the numbers without the leading zeroes is the same as far as 1's are concerned, hence you will get exactly 50,000 times the digit "1".

Imagine all those geniuses that unfortunately didn't have access to good books in history. What a loss!

Wow this doubles as a great ASMR video.. your voice is very relaxing and the way you move your pencil reminds me of an old tutor I had 25 years ago.

No question that he is outstanding and his answers at 7 are amazing, though one has to consider: - Mother a math teach with a first class honors degree in math, - 2 brothers of which both represented Australia in the math Olympics. That does not seem like a coincidence, rather good aptitude for math combined with vigorous parent schooling.

I was in the same gifted children's program as Terence. It was an early model for gifted education that was first established in Adelaide, South Australia in 1979 by Miraca Gross (a wonderful, brilliant woman & one of the pioneers in the field). Needless to say all of us in the program were at a level of giftedness that skewed so many deviation points past the standard that I believe most of us could very well have been understood to be non neurotypical. Terence was no different: absolutely brilliant, intelligent beyond belief, with a mind that just operated on a different level, yet he was also polite, humble, sensitive and kind, with little to no egocentricity that I ever saw. His parents were the same, always so very warm and welcoming, doing their utmost to make everyone feel welcome and included, just genuinely lovely people for whom I've always had a lot of respect for.

for the 1's problem, its a simple permutation and combination's question. where we can make use of the "box" technique. make 5 boxes(for 5digits) and write the number '1' in the first box. now the remaining 4 boxes(indicating the place to fill the remaining 4 digits) can be filled in 10 ways each(from '0' to '9'). this is case 1, and this case gives us a total of 10x10x10x10= 10000 ways (by using fundamental principle of counting)c for case 2, now leave the first box empty and write the number '1' in the second box. now again the remaining four boxes can be filled in 10ways each. notice: that we are automatically also counting for those cases when we have a '0' in the first box- making it a 4 digit number. in this case also, we get a total of 10000 ways. keep on repeating the process until you reach the last box. now all the cases give us a total of 10000 ways each. and since there are a total of 5 cases( as the digit '1' shifts among 5 boxes/places) so by fundamental principle of counting we get a total of 5x10000 = 50,000 ways of having the digit '1' from 1 to 99999

It was relieving for me to see that you have done some purposeful ASMR on this channel, as this random video I stumbled upon had me feeling crazy ASMR'd

No matter how stressed out, I'd calmly and easily fall asleep listening to (a recording of) you reading from... anything really.

As expected the 7 year old is smarter than me. In my defense, he was ALMOST 8, so it's a little better LOL

I've really got to catch up to Tibees' vids. They are always so interesting 🤦🏾‍♂️

Mom is a physics and math graduate and dad is a doctor. This is one of the major reason for his success.

As a maths major right now, I am utterly amazed at what he knew and his capacity to learn new concepts at 7 years old. Antiderivatives at 7? I was struggling with those in college. I've met non-maths people who just don't understand the absurdity of this level of intelligence. They equate higher level maths to algebra because it all looks the same to them. Like, no. Algebra is child's play. What Terry was doing at 7 is leagues above what you failed at in freshman year of high school.

When I was 7 I genuinely believed I was a maths genius, because I was slightly better at memorising times tables than the other students in my relatively small class. Turns out, I wasn't.

Basic, Fortran, and Pascal were fascinating. The most fascinating part of this, well two actually, he studied Euclid qnd obviously others and absorbed them intuitively... this is beyond gifted and wondrous to see. But the best part, for me, is his parents understanding that he needed age appropriate development and challenges within his gifted mode and to be allowed to wander through that which he found interesting. This is brilliant 1and too few parents understand how incredibly important this is.... ALL the way through to reasonable adulthood. This practice is as important to maintaining his genius and a stable mind as anything. Also quite fascinating is his young understanding of laws and reasons. I was no where near as gifted as this in mathematics but enough so in any case, but did not like nor cared much for laws, too many times the issue of answers without explanation were a constant facet of my life. His ability to understand laws as well as the framery is wildly beyond brilliant at that age.i would also argue the, probably most significant two answers he gave were- numbers do not know if I laugh AND I don't know to an answer.... these two answers say more about his genius than the maths do, in my opinion anyway. There are few balanced geniuses, again in my opinion and I have met many, but those two answers show a balance of understanding that was missed by the tester. The only other balanced genius I ha e known, graduated a good Uni at 13 and was doing wildly amazing things by 19... was/is gifted across spectrums, including human understanding and interaction. I suspect so is this young man but he hides it for his own reasons. Knew a guy at a well respected US Uni that taught himself how to read Ancient Greek in three months because he found such a book and was annoyed he could not read it. Language is laws and reflects maths in so many ways, I suspect this young man could do the same at whim, and tell no one. Truly hope his life is fulfilling for him, that, as I have seen anyway, can be a challenge to such people.

This is...Insane- I truly admire this success story of a child- Back when I was seven, I profusely struggled to learn, comprehend and put pieces of knowledge together. It took quite a few years to just surpass my elementary class, and then a few years later when I was 13 I transferred up a year in an English school, and at 14 now, I'm studying college and university material. Hearing about his success story of a boy at SEVEN able to do what I can do at FOURTEEN is....truly absurd- I really admire it. He deserves A LOT of praise-

For someone’s information, Tao’s parents both graduated from HKU in the last century. His dad did his MBBS and his mum graduated with first class honours in math and phy from HKU (Uni of Hong Kong) as well. His mum is definitely the one who sparked his genius

This actually freaked me out. Tao’s answers were so mature, so grown up, so smart, at seven years old, it didn’t seem human. It actually kind of frightened me.

I believe most of his success is due predominantly to studying. He just loved math. When I was 6, I learned group theory, set theory, and discrete mathematics but I never found it "fun". Just like in the book "Grit", success is found through purpose, passion, and perseverance.

When you hear stories like this, it’s really hard not to get angry at your parents and at the state you live under. There’s so many other people like this but they’ll just end up as a manager of some retail store or dying in a cobalt mine.

The Fibonacci program was so adorable!

This story also shows that being a math genius and child prodigy is not only a matter of personal ability and interest but also of an environment where it can grow. Most people, even with an interest and intellect as Terence's, would not have become the same child prodigy simply because they wouldn't have been exposed to the same things. What I mean is the following: In the first interview, he didn't know what a field was, but he knew what a boolean algebra was. This to me indicates that he must have learned these concepts either by reading his parents books or from his parents or their friends. But if those books would not have been around him, how would he know what this math even was? How would he pick up a concept neither his parents nor any of the books would ever mention? For the usual child, independent of intellect and interest, it is usually not the case that they are exposed to complicated math very early on, simply because most people do not know much about beyond high school mathematics or where to find them. I guess that in my hometown, maybe 40 people know what a field is, so how should a child pick it up even with the greatest interest.

Personally I didn't had the chance to be supported by my family. When I started to do maths, teenager, my father told me many times that I was a loser... At age 25 I was jobless, only doing maths in small room in Paris, with very few moneys. I found a real job in math (CNRS researcher) only 25 years later, at 50 ! I have never given up my inclination/dream for math. I mean, if my family was similar to Terence's family, perhaps I would have a real carrer in math ! The world is full of optical illusion !

Tibees, you are wonderful!

Hard to imagine a person for whom it would not be humbling. I can do most of those things now. But then, I’m 67.

"What is a field?" "I don't know :'(" *wins fields medal to redeem honor

Thank you Tibees!

It's encouraging to realize he is not a visual thinker, and more analytic and abstract, so it is not surprising we are not like him. We might have different logical strengths which imply more visual effort

So amazing. It's really hard to not compare myself with extreme outliers like this. It's not productive or healthy. Such an incredible mind.

The most discouraging part of this is how many similarly gifted kids are out there in the world suffering through 3rd grade classes (and being told they're lazy and don't pay attention) because they don't have the support that Terence had. I'm no Terence Tao, but I'm bright for a light bulb and the ONLY time in my entire curricular career that a teacher took me aside and offered me something interesting beyond the boring nonsense standard classwork was 8th grade English class.

Wonderful video, thanks so much for creating it.

Well... I'm 55 and i remember i learn all of that in high school... Not at 7. I know that i can't even remember how to do it anymore because i never needed it in every day life. Truly impressed by this young boy mental abilities.

Hey Tibees! Your videos really help me to enhance my exposure toward science.The way you get in touch with the life of scientists is really phenomenal.keep it up💕

My local doctor was Terence's dad until he retired a while back in Adelaide as he was a pediatrician. They have an amazing family, as the other brothers weren't as gifted as he was in learning.

Terry Tao is also just a super nice and humble guy!

What gets me about these child prodigies is just how motivated they seem to be.

There are people who learn math through hard work, a boatload of practice and sincere interest, like me. And then there are gifted folks like Terence. I am far from gifted, but some years ago I had a gifted student in my Calc class. Not a Terence, but still amazingly smart. It was a real pleasure to work with this individual. And no, he wasn't a typical bookworm either.He got a free ride to MIT. I am sure he knows more about math than I do by now...

Wow, to be effectively the level of a rather competent 10th grader at 7 years old. His eloquence with mathematical language is incredible too. Truly a genius.

I was born for the field of arts, for I have always found maths and physics difficult (I guess I did not have good teachers), but watching your videos do make me want to learn more about science. I am convinced it is an "addictive" field that makes one keep on taking new challenges 🤗

He is probably 1 out of millions genius plus the perfect setting (parents, good childhood, no other interests that interfere with maths, no mental illness later etc)

Terrence's reply that questions can't hear him laugh, is like Bruce Lee's 'boards don't hit back'. 👌👌

What amazes me about Tao is not his age, but how quickly he learned and understood mathematics.

He considered answering, "Fields is the name of the medal I will win in 2006," but decided to be unpretentious!

Parents , correct the first sign of intellectual genius by introducing that which all geniuses appear inside of and is awake to itself . Establish restful alertness as their primary identity and THEN allow their worldly " genius " to flourish . without doing this you risk the genius becoming an obstacle to fulfillment

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="426">7:06</a>min "Brmmmm -brmmmm -putt-putt- " As a programmer he peaked so early.

His parents were angels. I can't imagine how badly my parents would have handled that.

Your voice is just angelic. Wow, first time on this channel.

Terrance and his parents came to our home and asked my father, who was a Dr of science, physics and mathematics lecturer at Adelaide Uni, to mentor him. My father declined, he believed that children should allowed to be children and there would be plenty of time for maths when he was older. While they had their meeting Terrance and I played Lego building houses. He sent me a thank you card, which I still have and his parents still have my mums casserole dish 😂

He's the type of kid that will read the whole terms and conditions and click: I disagree.

This is so inspiring . Thanks, Terence !

This gives me hope/inspiration for the future.

“The questions won’t know if I laugh at them, because they haven’t got ears.” Such wisdom and sense of humor beyond his years.

The fact that he knows what boolean algebra is just mesmerizing😂

There was another kid just like this one where the parents pushed math, so he was way ahead of his peers, but as time went on he became less and less interested in math due to his parents pushing it so much, as a result his peers slowly caught up as the years went by. Just goes to show that just because you know a lot of math at a young age and are way ahead, doesn't mean you'll keep doing it later in life. You have to have "self-drive" and "self-motivation" as well to be successful.

I think one advantage children have is they have no concept of what's possible or what the limits and expectations are. They like a thing and they just go for it.

Getting the mental questions all correct in only 9 minutes is simply astonishing. Most people take 9 minutes to READ the questions let alone begin solving them...mentally.

Here I am at 23 having forgotten most of the math I ever learned. Im currently heading to college for the first time. I've been self studying the basics.

This was very inspiring, thanks for the video. Future me, if you see this, I hope you continue to have that burning passion in learning and push yourself to become better everyday.

You know that some people can ace a test without breaking a sweat. Not because they are "intelligent " but because there is something about their mental processes that seem to solve problems for them automatically without any effort on their part.

I wish I had Tibees as my math and physics teacher.

I'm glad someone in the world knows how to do math and medicine etc, because if it was up to me, we would be in trouble.

When I was at secondary school, studding the Ruffini method to solve quadratic equations, I found it quite tedious, so I tried to find a formula instead; after two days, I discovered by my self the discriminant formula by using the Ruffini method, then I showed it to my teacher quite exited and he told me: "oh, that's the discriminant formula, you are supposed to study it next year". He never understood that I came out to that formula by my self.

Absolutely enjoyed 🙏

That's just...wow. If anything, it's way more inspiring than discouraging - having that level of commitment to math at any age is amazing

"Many would consider him a genius?" ....His IQ is over 200, he's a genius by definition...

The amazing thing to differentiate between a Genius Mathematician and a learned Mathematician is by how one comes up with the solution as soon as they lay eyes on the question. To explain more properly, as a Mathematician myself, I can look at the answers and understand how he got them and see how it works and it all makes sense just by the time I have read the first few workings. But what inteuiged me is how that young boy _comes up_ with the first few lines of the solution by just laying eyes on the question. That ability, is underrated as when one possess that attribute; *he simply has seen the path to the answer already.* Masha Allah, very impressive, and blessed. Hopefully I reach the level of this young boy in the ability to deduce the solution in such a manner.

I have to admit her voice is so soothing 💫

I love how she does her intro ...

Please make more of these videos of other exceptional Mathematicians and physicists if possible. This is great content.

Another tale of a savant with the right teaching and support at an early age. While this is a great thing, it also irritates me- as who knows how many brillaint people there are out there... that never had his kind of opportunity.

This is fascinating !

Aspiring mathematicians be like: "No I'm not demotivated and I'm not crying."😢

Seeing Paul Erdős' name anywhere is one of the few things that makes a hungarian person proud. Just like John von Neumann or John Kemény.

I was never challenged in terms of my knowledge at school, everything that was presented to me didn't seem difficult at all, but now that I am in my first semester of college doing a math major I feel so stupid, I just feel that I haven't gotten the capacity to study and I'm just used to just absorbing everything, and now that I don't allways get the things at the first time they are explained to me, I just get so frustrated. Anyways, I am really working on that but I kinda wish I grew up in a more challenging environment that helped me to learn how to properly study and not to relly on my raw intelligence. By the way, English is not my first language so I'm sorry if got some things wrong

I went to school with his kid, was one of his only friends for 4th-6th grade, a really sweet family.

*My Mind:* So... _this_ is what average feels like...

Thank you for taking me into the world of a 7 years old Terence.

your voice is very pleasant to listen to

I never thought I’d be trying to solve math problems like this at 3am while not in school anymore!