I still remember the realization in college at Flinders University in Australia that mathematics was not just an abstract game of symbols but could be used as a tool to analyze and understand the modern world.
Terence TaoRead
I often don't know what I'll be working on next year or a year from now. There is often a chance meeting, or something that I worked on 10 years ago suddenly becomes important again.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life can be unpredictable, and past experiences may resurface unexpectedly, guiding future opportunities.
This quote by Terence Tao reflects the unpredictable nature of life and career paths. It highlights how we often cannot foresee what will be significant to us in the future, and sometimes, seemingly unrelated past experiences can play a crucial role in shaping our current endeavors. It encourages openness to chance encounters and the idea that all of our experiences contribute to our journey in ways we might not initially understand.
Themes
UnpredictabilityFutureOpportunityExperienceChance
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote when discussing career paths in a motivational speech.
More from Terence Tao
All quotes →Most students who take math classes aren't going to be mathematicians. They're going to be engineers, statisticians - in many ways, that's the more important mission of math education.
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For me, I guess the main motivation is the satisfaction of finally understanding some tricky mathematical concept or phenomenon and then explaining it to others.
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One can think of any given axiom system as being like a computer with a certain limited amount of memory or processing power. One could switch to a computer with even more storage, but no matter how large an amount of storage space the computer has, there will still exist some tasks that are beyond its ability.
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I recall being fascinated by numbers even at age three and viewed their manipulation as a kind of game.
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Talent is important, but how one develops and nurtures it is even more so.
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