Fields Medals (1 Viewer)

buchanan · Aug 23, 2006

Here is Tao's plenary lecture:
http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/preprints/Slides/icmslides2.pdf

He is the first Australian to win a Fields medal. So I have nominated Tao for the Australian of the Year Award for 2007.

KeypadSDM · Aug 31, 2006

I heard Terry Gagen read him bedtime stories when he went to NMSS, I believe he was younger than 10.

blackfriday · Aug 31, 2006

at uni the maths lecturers wouldnt shut up about him. well fair enough, they taught with him for two years, but still...

buchanan · Sep 2, 2006

I got a letter from Old Parliament House yesterday saying that we find out on January 25 if Tao wins the Australian of the Year award.

Apparently there are over 3200 nominations. So he might not win it. But I hope he wins it.

I reckon it would raise the profile of maths in Australia if he wins it. Many uneducated Australians (and appallingly even some maths teachers) don't even know what a Fields medal is!

KeypadSDM · Sep 2, 2006

That's gotta be Bull. The Field's Medal is the Nobel of Mathematics...

buchanan · Sep 2, 2006

I'd like to be able to agree with you about it being bull. But unfortunately, despite it being in the media a lot lately, there is still a lot to be done to raise the profile of maths in Australia.

Of course, Tao winning the Fields medal and all the subsequent media attention has itself helped.

But alas, the Field's medal isn't as famous as the Nobel prize and we have to keep saying something like "the Fields is the Nobel for maths", etc., to people who don't know what the Fields medal is - even to some maths teachers! This isn't bull. I've had to explain to maths teachers what the Fields medal is. It's embarassing that I have to do this. I shouldn't have to.

Anyway, would you agree that he should win the Australian of the Year award?

KeypadSDM · Sep 2, 2006

It really depends who he's up against. Honestly, I'd say the Australian who cures cancer is probably a little more important than one who can prove given k, I can find that many primes in arithmetic progression.

buchanan · Sep 2, 2006

Yeah. If he doesn't win it, whoever does probably deserves it too.

But I nominated Tao because I believe he also deserves it - but also because it'd raise the profile of maths in Australia.

And a technical note:

KeypadSDM said:
given k, I can find that many primes in arithmetic progression.

He didn't prove you can find them. He proved they exist. His proof was non-constructive.

KeypadSDM · Sep 3, 2006

Even worse, I suppose. If it was constructive we'd know waaay too much about prime numbers.

Slidey · Sep 3, 2006

I agree with Buchanan; Tao's work may not be as "important" in the sense of immediately saving lives, but it may be more important in the sense that raising awareness of the importance of mathematics is crucial to the future of all the sciences and technologies, and hence to the invention of any life-saving products they might churn out.

buchanan · Sep 15, 2006

There is now a summary in the October issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society at
http://www.ams.org/notices/200609/comm-prize-fields.pdf

acmilan · Sep 15, 2006

Anyone going to the maths seminar at MQ? Tao shall be giving a talk (among others)

buchanan · Sep 15, 2006

acmilan said:
Anyone going to the maths seminar at MQ? Tao shall be giving a talk (among others)

It's 25 - 29 September, 2006

Tao is giving two talks. One on the Tuesday and one on the Wednesday.

I'm going on the Tuesday and two colleagues of mine are going on the Wednesday.

Details are at http://www.maths.mq.edu.au/austms06/homepage.html

buchanan · Sep 20, 2006

Tao has just won a US$500,000 MacArthur Fellowship for 2006!:

Terence Tao is a mathematician who has developed profound insights into a host of difficult areas, including partial differential equations, harmonic analysis, combinatorics, and number theory. He has made significant advances in problems such as Horn’s Conjecture, which he showed can be reduced to a geometric combinatorial configuration known as a “honeycomb”; this problem holds deep implications for more abstract mathematical relationships in algebraic combinatorics. His analysis of the Schroedinger equation, a central element of quantum mechanics, has provided new avenues for solving nonlinear partial differential equations. Recently, with Ben Green, Tao offered a proof of the longstanding conjecture that there exist arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions consisting only of prime numbers. (For millennia, mathematicians have studied the properties of prime numbers, which find important applications in cryptography among other things.) In addition to his research, Tao has taken a leadership role in educating mathematics students through his web site, commentaries, books, and lectures. His work is characterized by breadth and depth, technical brilliance and profound insight, placing him as one of the outstanding mathematicians of his time.

Terence Tao was born in Adelaide, Austrailia in 1975 and received an M.Sc. (1992) from Flinders University of South Australia and a Ph.D. (1996) from Princeton University. He is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he has taught since 1996, when he joined the department as the Hedrick Assistant Professor. He has been a visiting professor at the University of New South Wales (2000) and an honorary professor at Australia National University (2001-2003). Tao has authored and contributed to several books, and his numerous articles have appeared in such publications as the Annals of Mathematics, Acta Mathematica, and the American Journal of Mathematics.

http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.2070789/apps/nl/content2.asp?content_id={6DBB4260-1605-496C-8311-36328C702E50}&notoc=1

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20443542-2702,00.html

buchanan · Sep 26, 2006

I went to Tao's talk today. It was AMAZING!

He speaks pretty fast and is very quiet. So it took a while to get used to. He is very unassuming. Not a show-off at all. Here was the first Australian Fields medallist giving a Plenary Lecture at the AMS Annual Meeting - in thongs and jeans!

First however was a very interesting thing. It was the 50th anniversary of the Australian Mathematical Society. 2 very elderly members at the front were at the very first meeting 50 years ago and were invited to cut a 50th anniversary cake.

Then Garth Gaudry was invited to present Tao with the Australian Mathematical Society medal for 2005.

Tao gave the talk on long arithmetic progressions of primes, notes for which are at

http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/preprints/Slides/austms.pdf

and tomorrow he'll give a talk on the cosmic distance ladder, the notes for which are at

http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/preprints/Slides/distance_ladder.pdf

and

http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/preprints/Slides/distance_pics.pdf

At the end, Alf van der Poorten (I must say in true Alf style! - the old guy hasn't lost his touch) challenged Tao! He's the only one in the audience who would dare do such a thing. Tao has nearly proved the twin prime conjecture and Alf asserted that there is evidence it might be false. Tao responded with probabilistic arguments and amazingly Alf conceded. There's no way I'd have the guts to challenge Tao. He's amazing. Easily THE BEST MATHEMATICIAN IN THE WORLD, I reckon!

At the end we ate the cake cut earlier by the two venerable gentlemen and had champagne. I showed Alf his Number Theory lectures on my iPod and he said that's the first time he's seen himself on an iPod. And I spoke to the chief examiner for the HSC about the third derivative test for inflections who conceded that my comments on the internet about the third derivative test are correct. I met the author, Graeme Cohen, of the new book Counting Australia In which was launched after the meeting. I bought it, but didn't have time to stay for the book launch. It looks interesting. It's about the history of maths in Australia.

Chief examiners I can handle. Tao? - no way. He's too good. He beat Alf hands down. So I wouldn't dare do what Alf did.

Polya once said that von Neumann was so good at maths it scared him. I never really understood what he meant by that until this afternoon.

Tao is so good at maths he scares me.

buchanan · Sep 27, 2006

It's in today's Australian:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20481715-12332,00.html

And also on the 7.30 Report on ABC TV tonight:

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1750564.htm

buchanan · Oct 1, 2006

Tao has updated his conference notes on his website:

http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/preprints/Slides/austms.pdf (for the Tuesday)

http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/preprints/Slides/distance_ladder.pdf

and

http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/preprints/Slides/distance_pics.pdf (for the Wednesday)

Slidey · Oct 1, 2006

Turns out he's friends with Andrew Hassle; my 1st year maths lecturer.

Templar · Oct 1, 2006

Slidey said:
Turns out he's friends with Andrew Hassle; my 1st year maths lecturer.

Considering Hassle is the first Australian IMO gold medallist, it's not that surprising.

buchanan · Oct 3, 2006

Tao's most famous theorem is that the prime numbers contain arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions. The paper on this was published in 2004:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/math.NT/0404188

However a much more recent thing is a generalisation of this to say if P1, . . . , Pk are any integer polynomials with zero constant coefficient, then the prime numbers contain infinitely many polynomial progressions of the form n + P1(r), . . . , n + Pk(r). Although this was mentioned in the talk he gave at Macquarie University last month, the paper for this was only published a few days ago at
http://arxiv.org/pdf/math.NT/0610050

Fields Medals (1 Viewer)

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B4nn3d

Pezzonovante

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B4nn3d

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B4nn3d

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B4nn3d

But pieces of what?

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I'll stab ya

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But pieces of what?

P vs NP

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