<story><title>The Mind of a Mathematician</title><url>https://paw.princeton.edu/article/mind-mathematician</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>usgroup</author><text>I very much like that people like Tao are famous. It’s relatively good for the intellectual spirit and hopefully it inspires others.&lt;p&gt;However this fixation with his “extraordinary capacity”, scores, medals and accolades; I wish we could skip it.&lt;p&gt;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?&lt;p&gt;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.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Mind of a Mathematician</title><url>https://paw.princeton.edu/article/mind-mathematician</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Jun8</author><text>Tao&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;Solving Mathematical Problems: A Personal Perspective&lt;/i&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;Solving-Mathematical-Problems-Personal-Perspective&amp;#x2F;dp&amp;#x2F;0199205604&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;Solving-Mathematical-Problems-Persona...&lt;/a&gt;) mentioned here is an excellent book that provides keys to mathematical approach to problems and is now a classic ranking there with Polya&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;How to Solve It&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;One thing the article doesn&amp;#x27;t touch on is Tao&amp;#x27;s prominence in massively collaborative math research through his blog (latest such work from there was discussed on HN a day ago &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=21542054&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=21542054&lt;/a&gt;). This new approach, first proposed by Tom Gowers (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;gowers.wordpress.com&amp;#x2F;2009&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;27&amp;#x2F;is-massively-collaborative-mathematics-possible&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;gowers.wordpress.com&amp;#x2F;2009&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;27&amp;#x2F;is-massively-collabo...&lt;/a&gt;) in 2009 has successfully solved a number of open problems in the past ten years (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;polymathprojects.org&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;ten-years-of-polymath&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;polymathprojects.org&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;ten-years-of-polymat...&lt;/a&gt;).</text></comment>