1588: Terence Tao Quotes by Year (2003–2025)
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Personal)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/11/02
How do Terence Tao’s 2003–2025 quotes illuminate discovery, collaboration, pedagogy, and AI in modern mathematics?
2003
“Ever since I can remember, I have enjoyed mathematics; I recall being fascinated by numbers even at age three.”
“I work in a number of areas, but I don’t view them as being disconnected; I tend to view mathematics as a unified subject.”
“There are fewer miracles, but instead there is lots of intuition coming from physics and from geometry.”
“In analysis, many research programs do not conclude in a definitive paper, but rather form a progression of steadily improving partial results.”
2006
“Collaboration is very important for me, as it allows me to learn about other fields, and… share what I have learnt about my own fields.”
“I pick up a lot of problems (and collaborators) by talking to other mathematicians.”
“I’m drawn to problems placed in as simple a setting as possible — a ‘toy model’ — where other difficulties are turned off.”
“I’d like to see mathematics demystified more, and to be made more accessible to the public.”
“I’m also a great fan of interdisciplinary research — taking ideas from one field and applying them to another.”
“If I learned something in class that I only partly understood, I wasn’t satisfied until I was able to work the whole thing out.”
2007
“The concept of mathematical quality is a high-dimensional one.”
“We all agree that mathematicians should strive to produce good mathematics.”
2009
“Often advice has its notable counterexamples.”
“Ultimately you should follow advice not because someone tells you to, but because it was something that you already knew you should be doing.”
2019
“They’re still out of reach.” (on near-miss approaches to Collatz)
“We have too little control over it.”
2020
“The freedom to fail is important.”
2022
“Science is cumulative and collaborative: individual contributions build up over time, and there is plenty of work for everyone.”
2023
“Therefore, an ideal collaboration should contain at least one ‘pessimist’ and one ‘optimist’.”
2024
“I do envision a future where you do research through a conversation with a chatbot.”
“Then you can do factory production–type, industrial-scale mathematics, which doesn’t really exist right now.”
“I’m not super interested in duplicating the things that humans are already good at. It seems inefficient.”
“A todos los efectos prácticos, las elecciones y la democracia funcionan.”
2025
“There’s this phenomenon in mathematics called universality.”
“We’re seeing the successes, not the failures.”
Last updated May 3, 2025. These terms govern all In-Sight Publishing content—past, present, and future—and supersede any prior notices. In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons BY‑NC‑ND 4.0; © In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen 2012–Present. All trademarks, performances, databases & branding are owned by their rights holders; no use without permission. Unauthorized copying, modification, framing or public communication is prohibited. External links are not endorsed. Cookies & tracking require consent, and data processing complies with PIPEDA & GDPR; no data from children < 13 (COPPA). Content meets WCAG 2.1 AA under the Accessible Canada Act & is preserved in open archival formats with backups. Excerpts & links require full credit & hyperlink; limited quoting under fair-dealing & fair-use. All content is informational; no liability for errors or omissions: Feedback welcome, and verified errors corrected promptly. For permissions or DMCA notices, email: scott.jacobsen2025@gmail.com. Site use is governed by BC laws; content is “as‑is,” liability limited, users indemnify us; moral, performers’ & database sui generis rights reserved.
In-Sight Publishing 