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  • He's such a great teacher in a way that, despite his problems with the idiom (also he speaks too fast) and his obvious shyness, he can make very difficult math problems sound easier than they really are, also he makes you want to know more...

  • the bruce lee of mathematics

  • I believe the professor is correct

  • he even wears a futuristic sweater...

  • clever guy, needs to speak more slowly..... we're not all hyperspeed merchants.

  • Isn't he a standard asian?

  • Terence sounds like Sam in Transformers II when he tries to tell his university class that Newton? or Einstein was wrong. XD

  • Excellent subject & lecture. But prof.tao sounds like a gatling gun...

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  • wtf is he saying man?

    he speaks so fast!!

  • 3 people represent some kind of subset that if I had some math wit, I would say it here.

  • LOL. Reading the comments below make me giggle like Mr. Wiggles. All you retards trying to be subject matter experts when this guy is clearly a genius.

  • @MrDanielMaciag his iq is 220~230..

  • @cerberusdest no.

  • @sirkyan google it

  • @MrDanielMaciag First, sorry about my english, I'm from Chile. Chess is a game that has very simple rules, is motonone, bored and not interesting for curious people. Kasparov was owned by a machine oh so pathetic game rules and players. You have no idea about this man and what he does, you have no idea about math and physics, nor the importance of applied math on technology and science, so don't speak shit fucking troll please..

  • @MrDanielMaciag You have no idea how difficult upper div/grad level math is.

  • my head hurts

  • Is his accent typically Australian? Frankly speaking I can understand Yorkshire accent and Cockney accent very well, apart from American English of course, But I don't quite follow him...

  • @dawncoming He's Australian so yes.

  • why does everyone keep saying he's a bad speaker? I can follow him just fine

  • The best Australian Mathematician, lives in America =( America steals everyone

  • it's not so much that he's a bad speaker it's just that his microphone should have been louder

  • Brilliant guy; not a great speaker.

  • How is he so smart!?

  • @talithin primes keep me up at night, and I'm stupid, but I spend a lot of time on them. I think this guy here, I don't know his formal title, should write a book for laymen about primes and encourage us to factor them on our own; maybe a game. It's mentally stimulating.

  • @returnoftheramble I'd recommend a wonderful book by Marcus du Sautoy titled "The Music of the Primes". You might also like to check some of his great lectures/talks on youtube as well as some bbc programs he's presented.

  • @talithin can you factor any? It's fun.  They should turn it into a game. In fact, I'm going to.

  • @talithin like (2+3)+(2X3)=11

    (5,7) = 47 Y

    Sorry to take up so many comments. For some reason, it wouldn't let me post the original even though it was under the number count.

  • @talithin also p1+p2)+(p1Xp2) = prime. If and only if, p <=7or n <=8 Sometimes I can take a group of 3,4 primes and do the same thing like (p1+p2+p3+p4)+(p1Xp2Xp3Xp4)=pr­ime

    2,3,5,7 (Primes)

  • @talithin 9+2(n+9) = prime for numbers 1,2,3,5,7,9, which generates 29, 31,33,37,41,43.

  • I wonder if he gets any chicks.... i know i would go after him... knowledge is sexy.

  • @yahboy25 He does have a wife and a kid.

  • @frangossauro Good! his kid must be very smart then! 

  • while I was trying, I came up with another kid math thing (like 4 of them this stay; I have cyanidephrenia) You can find the next square if you follow this pattern

    First take the square that you know

    3^2=9

    Take the square root of 9

    which is 3

    Then add the next number, 4,

    which is 3+4

    Then add that total, 7, to the product of step 1, which is 9+7

    The total is 16 and that's the answer to 4^2

  • @returnoftheramble you are taking n^2. then taking squre root it is n .addin n+1 with it gives n+(n+1)=2n+1.Now you are adding n^2 with 2n+1.which gives n^2+2n+1=(n+1)^2

  • 1:n^2

    2 :n

    3: n+(n+1)=2n+1

    4:n^2+2n+1=(n+1)^2

  • @returnoftheramble This basically uses the fact that the difference between two consecutive square numbers in 2n+1: that is (n+1)^2 - n^2 = 2n+1 which you can prove by just opening the brackets on the left.

  • @talithin yeah, I like to find cluster of prime numbers in my spare time. I was trying to find them, and I came up with this instead. It's lame, but hey, it's what I do to prove I'm not retarded to evil nurses who don't even know their times tables (therefore, they are technically retarded).

  • @returnoftheramble

    good job, but it is already known.... sum of first n odd numbers is n^2.... what you did is nothing but that....

    for eg, 1 = 1^2, 1+3 = 2^2, 1+3+5 = 3^2, 1+3+5+7 so essentially when you are adding the next number to n, which is n+1, you get 2n+1, which is nth odd number

  • @050138 you're forgetting that 3+7 =19 and 7-54=pie

  • @050138 all math is general knowledge. I'm well aware of this.

  • I can't understand primes. I've spent hours with them and come up with a few equations to find them, but they drive me up the wall. I've nearly decided that it's impossible with the laws of multiplication bouncing like they do.

  • In the sieve analogy - in reality you have to tare or discount the weight of the box, is there a corollary in mathematics ?

  • @easttiger2010

    except my assertion only deals with what the primes can be expressed as not what they cannot be expressed as.

    i said primes can be expressed by the sum of one prime

    this is true

    i NEVER said primes can can only be expressed by the sum of ONE prime more logic plzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  • Hello. Equasions are already there?=YES= We only discover them?

    We do not make the Maths?

    But

    Maths is Behind Every last thing?=YES

    So. How does the big Bang Make the maths?=It does not.

    How does the big Bang Make a Uniform universe?=It does?

    The Maths are in the Big Bang Or Bangs ,how can this be? = If we are discovering them. Who left them for us to Discover?

    Nope. i Cannot owrk this one out? mathematicians can you work that one out for me Please???

  • @lordlugworm you're dumb

  • @lordlugworm Maybe mathematicians can not answer that.

    Big bang is in the realm of physics.

    A physics reasoning could be that our big bang is one of infinite big bangs (see multiverse).

    Maybe we exist in a universe where math works because we could not exist in a universe without math.

    Just like we live on land and not under water, because we need to breathe air and not water.. (see anthropic principle)

  • @a575981735977018

    read the beginning of the book "the road to reality" by Roger Penrose. He has a nice idea that explains it quite well i think.

    basically its 3 different realms: physical reality / the universe, then what goes on in our mind (art, language, mathematics, science), and the realm of mathematics. what goes on in our mind is a subset of physical reality. physical reality is a subset of whats possible in mathematics. mathematics is a subset of the content of our minds.

  • @kurtilein3 physics<mind<math<physics... sounds like he's going full circle there, lol.

    I sorta liked his "Emperors new mind" (although maybe a bit too much "talking" for my taste).

    And 1100 pages, I don't think I will read it this year...

  • @a575981735977018

    Well, eventually it will go full circle, ideally it does. So for us there is not just one way to observe reality, but two. One is directly observing physical reality, and by doing this creating a mental image that matches aspects of reality. The second way is over mathematics into the natural sciences / physics. And then the famous drake equation tells you that the universe is probarbly full of life. Two ways to approach reality, thats more than just one.

  • @a575981735977018

    As soon as humankind fully understands mathematics, and physics, we could go full circle. We would be able to estimate how many other civilisations are out there, and we would be able to communicate with them. When travelling space, we would know what we probarbly could find, and what we necessarily wont find. And we will be colonizers, also at that point we shouldnt be confined to one planet anymore.

  • @a575981735977018

    so what i say is, if that idea by roger penrose is true, and its so difficult to completely solve in any real way that its more philosophical in nature, there can be no universe where mathematics isnt possible, and mathematics can only be possible in a universe.

    then, even if there would be many universes, mathematis would be possible in every single one of them.

    we could prove it theoretically, but it probarbly would involve completely understanding everything in physics.

  • @lordlugworm

    look at my other comments as well, i also commented about this responding to the other person :)

    basically i think it is plausible, and i assume, that universes cannot exist without mathematics. so no matter if there is life in a universe or not, there is mathematics in that universe and you can discover mathematics.

    also, how can you have a universe without a set of laws of nature?

  • @kurtilein3 I don't know anything about the penrose trinity idea of physics-mind-math, but it is a bit fun to try to think what a universe without a set of laws of nature would be like. I'm thinking that universe would be totally random, with no structure.

  • @a575981735977018

    it would not be random. The physical unverse is governed by the laws of nature, which are expressed in mathematics, following strict rules. Actually we first discover that physical reality follows certain rules, and later put the mathematics on top of it and see that it works. And mathematics is full of structure, in a fractal way, if you pick something, the more specific your pick is the more order there will be. And nature picks highly specific parts.

  • i got a conjecture

    all primes can be expressed as the sum of one prime

    LOLOL

    FIELD MEDAL FOR ME PLZ

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  • @whateffbitch90 how do you have internetz :o

  • what he think for normal things may for others a little bit diffficult.

    we need rather some stupid professors,so all can pass

    the exsams.

  • terence tao=power tool

  • He's even smarter than sheldon D:

  • GENIUS

    IT WAS VERIFIED HE HAS AN IQ OF 230 AND HE DID IT AT A LATE AGE.

  • just opened this video, googeling Terence Tao after reading in our local news he is the smartest person in the world with IQ 230 confirmed.

  • Comparisons to Euler and Gauss...how does that not fuck with your head. The comparisons are deserved though.

  • College courses at 9? Holy shi..

  • I like how he says there's a arithmetic progression of prime numbers out there of length 1 billion yet the longest sequence we've found has length 23. Not only that, this guy has proven that there are billions of arithmetic progressions of length exactly 1 billion?

    That's unreal. This is like the equivalent of saying you've understood all of Shakespeare's works by merely examining the first word of just one of his plays (!)

  • @Tiqerboy

    1. go read his proof for it. He doesn't have the time in this to show you why. The short ones are examples. Then again if you didn't realize that the proof will will probably make absolutely no sense to you anyways ;/

    2. you're comparing math to interpretive literature, which in itself is shaky, but then you go about doing it by terrible analogy. lul.

  • @Tiqerboy "I like how he says there's a arithmetic progression of prime numbers out there of length 1 billion yet the longest sequence we've found has length 23."

    There is a proof of this...

    Mathematics isn't experimental, the word "proof" does not entail the same thing as in the physical sciences. You do not need to find an arithmetic series of prime numbers of length 1 billion to be certain that it exists. After all, mathematics is essentially a human fabrication, it just has applications.

  • @Tiqerboy The Tao-Green Theorem uses an existence proof; it doesn't give a way to construct these progressions but it says they exist.

  • I'm try to figure out what he has proven. At 39:50, he has two arithmetic sequences of length 6 :

    7, 37, 67, 97, 127, 157 (with spacing = 30)

    7, 157, 307, 457, 607, 757 (with spacing = 150)

    He says there are infinite number of arithmetic progression of length 6, but I don't understand the spacing. Both these sequences start at 7, but have different spacings. Do all 6-number progressions have to start at 7? A 6-number progression starting at a higher number, has a higher spacing?

  • @Tiqerboy haven't seen that part in the video yet, but i noticed the first 2 digits before 7, are multiplied by 5, 3x5=15, 6x5=30, 9x5=45 etc. hope it helps, but rarely so often does it, instead more questions.

  • @Tiqerboy

    not necessary. the theorem didn't give any information about spacing.

    to state the theroem more explicily, given any natural number k, there exists some prime pk (may not be unique) such that all the elements in an arithmetic sequence starting from pk with k terms are all prime.

    for instance when k=2, {2,3} is in A.S and all elements are prime. similary, one can also state that {5,7} is in A.S where all elements are prime. the starting point may not be unique.

  • at 22:21 tao says .0002% but the error was .00002%. I corrected terry tao!

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  • i like how hes acting all brilliant, but talking about garbage that no one really likes

  • @gen6k by no one, do you mean, you? and with that standard of thought, you = no one. opinion rejected, move along.

  • @CrippledNasty is that supposed to be set theory? u retard this virgin is boring, do some physics at least hes jabbering on about stupid organizations, you can come up with quasinfinite nigga its all ones nigga its pi

  • @gen6k troll harder. i understand that your need to breach the boundaries of human civility is the reflection of the pain and suffering you internalize and form as abrasive and intentionally hurtful externalized behaviors. the harder you try to put others down, the more the world sees how weak you are, they see your hurt, but that has long been forgotten by the common civilized man, as it's a primitive emotional outburst no longer functional in modern times. but yeah, troll harder.

  • @CrippledNasty did you get this from the bible?

  • @gen6k "no one"

    The lecture hall is full.

    Who the fuck are you?

    Who the fuck do you think he is?

    Physics is applied math. If you're so brilliant do the application yourself

    This is a lecture specifically on primes. Not sure what you were thinking of when you clicked the video.

    +1 for the faggots trolling even in these remote parts of youtube. How the fuck did you find this video anyways? I'm pretty sure Justin Bieber isn't tagged in it.

  • @sec7or13 i lol'd at ur pwnage of gen6k, the so-called "faggot" :D

  • @CrippledNasty you owned that troll nicely. well done

  • Love the analogies. A lot of brilliant math minds fail to do this and so nobody understands what the hell they're talking about.

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  • This guy is so cool! :D

  • smart guy, but this talk would be much better if he could stand still and stop fidgeting throughout!

  • When Chuck Norris needs math lessons, he goes to Tao

  • It's funny how he doesn't have an Aussie accent

  • the retard likes primes. Gilgamesh, that for which you seek, you shall never find. Primes are for the gods, Gilgamesh. I'm going to try to find the relation of them between 1,10,100,1000. That's my next attempt.

  • He is so shy

  • 2 people watched the lecture upside down)))

  • Tao is Chuck Norris's math teacher.

  • Is he Japanese?

  • @MrNuhYamin He's Chinese Australian.

  • can't believe this guy was born in the small city of Adelaide where I'm from :O

  • ASIAN ARE WAY BETTER THAN NIGGAZ

  • @TheCockyCunts

    niggaz? what does this have to do with math problems. people say the stupidest things sometimes LOL

  • News Flash: The Largest Prime Number has escaped. Authorities briefly had it in custody, but it shattered the jailhouse to smithereens and stalked off into the night. If you see this Mathematical Monster, you are hallucinating! Get help immediately!

  • Windows? Ok Dr. Tao, you are the smartest people on Earth (perhaps with exception of Dr. Perelman), but why using Windows, I aways imagine you as a Slackware guy. 

  • Tao is the dumbest person in the world)))

  • a^p = 1 (mod p)

  • ucla want to fix it... I'm not an attention whore. I'm labeled. I think they should put my triangle on an entrance test. It makes scary things happen, but it's a tool.

  • Has anyone else seen the triangle? I'm not posting it here. School school isn't me. Im more into trades. I'm going to finish up college. I think I'm going to write a childrens math book. What ever happened didn't give me super powers but it made me more aware. Come on, someone else post an algorithm.

  • 9 plus 2(nplus9)=prime 29 31 33 37 41 43 counting numbers is what n is. 1=29

  • I have a few. It became a hobby for awhile.

  • Can you pelase try and make the next recording in sterio. I cannot stand listening to mono-sound.

  • If I were to ever become a math prof., I'd really look forward to saying what Tao said at 40:26, lol.

  • Perhaps the most important discovery in prime number sieving since Eratosthenes.

    Google search on "primes demystified"

  • His brilliance is beautiful. But like many great mathematicians he is a terrible communicator - gabbles too fast

  • shouldn't it be "Reductio ad absurdUm"?

    Too late to correct now, but still it might be worth mentioning

  • Lol. This is why I'm going as a scientists. U can actually put your knowledge to work and help other people. Not write equations and numbers on a chalkboard all day long like a mathematician

  • @SgtGizmo23 too think mathematicians have never helped anyone is extremely arrogant.

  • Let's leave the religion nonsense for non-intellectual discussions

  • compairing him to oiler? Wow either the presenter is full of crap or this kid is amazing. Not that great in public speaking but if he canbe as prolific and as significant as oiler than we are living amongst one of the goats (greatest of all time) of math

  • @karmatik1Although its pronounced Oiler, Its written Euler. Not Oiler.

  • I tried the click the information bar at the beginning of the video thinking it was an advertisement. Damn you Google!!!

  • he should write a book. "The Tao of Mathematics" :D HAHAHHAHAHAHA!

  • Is 30:05 correct? I think he made a mistake. Integer factorisation is not an NP-complete problem -- i.e. it doesn't matter if P = NP. Rather, it's an exponential time problem.

    i.e. the problem belongs to the set EXTIME rather than NP-Complete.

    If what he says is true then Shor's algorithm through quantum computation (which can factor large primes in polynomial time) would show that P=NP (the horror!). How can that be possible? NP-complete problems probably have no polynomial time solutions.

  • @rlinfinity was reading wikipedia and apparently it is an NP-complete problem so Tao is correct it seems.

  • @SensiStarToaster Actually nope. I thought about this a bit. He's either wrong or he's making an unproven conjecture. The decision problem version of Integer factorisation is trivially in NP and is known to be in BQP because Shor's algorithm solves it in polynomial time, but it is not known whether it is NP-complete... Given that It is already in BQP, it is very unlikely that it is NP-Complete. It would lead to some surprising results if it was.

  • nice camera work at 19:30

  • Why didn't Alice just mail the locked box and then mail the key.

  • @shallbeagain thats what i thought as well, mail the box, then mail the key afterwords

  • @shallbeagain Because the "eavesdropper" can then retrieve both the box and the key by intercepting both packages, and can consequently open the box.

  • this man is the worst teacher

    he may be good at his subject, but he is not good at teaching

  • Probably due to the fact that majority of mathematicians and amateur mathematicians alike love to skip step by step procedures. It has something to do with if you understand the subject quite well then we don't have to remind you again the patterns, type of mindset. It also has something to do with mathematical maturity, if you have a strong background of primary and secondary mathematics, such as, calculus 1, 2, ..., geometry, ..., trigonometry, ..., algebra.

  • its not so much the fact that he skips steps

    its the idea he talks so incredibly quickly

  • @kikkom4n "...he is not good at teaching ..."

    Here he is talking to people who are already far with math (high-school math student background), so he speaks quickly, allowing him to cover many subjects in less than an hour. On another level he'd of course have to slow down, involve the listeners with questions, examples etc.

    I think he could do that too - though brilliant researchers are often not geared to teach, which could be a waste of their time.

  • I find it difficult to believe that the universe hasn't managed to find a way to make use of the unique properties of the prime numbers. Surely they're at work all around us like the complex numbers for example.

    But math doesn't need the universe like the universe needs it. It's a weird sort of one way mutual exclusiveness.

  • Yes -- I have the idea that prime numbers affect the way molecules fold, RNA, DNA etc

  • Very interesting lecture. Seems like he's kinda sad about the fact that there's so much advanced theory/results he's not allowed to talk about.

  • At 38:05 Dr. Tao starts to talk about Green-Tao Theorem (2004)

  • what the fuck

  • me likey prime numbers

  • If you pretend that ONLY AN EXAMPLE (over millions of species) could be a prove that prime numbers are tied to the cycle prey-predator it´s not only naive but stupid. Prime numbers is an abstract idea and existis only like a human bullshit (by the way i'am mathematician)

  • Prove to us here that you are indeed somewhat a "Mathematician".

  • he speaks very fast ....

  • he does speak very fast, he's a genius

  • @gatoradeee he's more than a genius. HE IS GOD!

  • @rmhism Please, let's keep all religious fanatics away from this video.

  • Great job Dr. Tao and thanks UCLA!

  • Does he ever teach undergrad courses?

  • Chuck Norris tried to prove the Riemann Hypothesis and was killed. The PRIME suspect? Terry Tao because he has proved it :-) But seriously, Dr. Tao is one of the brightest minds in mathematics today.

  • Does anyone know where i can get the presentation.

  • damn I have to say that hwn000's explanations and adamant positions are quite compelling. I like his responses. Very well said.

  • It's too bad he wasn't abused a child, then he would be cool, like Will Hunting. BTW, when is he going to develop schizophrenia and act like a nut?

  • When Jesus needs math lessons, he goes to Tao.

  • @TheNexus Really? lets find out.... Genesis Ch.1:1 ; In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. 1: In the beginning = Time, 2: God created the heavens = Space, 3: ...and the Earth = Matter. Summery; In the beginning God created time, space, and matter (the basic composition of the known real universe) Want more? ok,

    1: Time= past, present, future. 2: Space= height, length, width ( 3D physical universe) 3: Matter = solid, liquid, gas (physical science) God is a mathematician.

  • @TheNexus But when Tao needs peace and rest from the 'other' problems of life, he must go to Jesus. Teamwork, I guess. ;-)

  • @TheNexus There's a Chuck Norris reference in there somewhere...

  • To the ones talking nonsense, you're not the person (T. Tao) people are watching above. Go do something of note, and then maybe others can also say nonsense about you.

  • Order out of chaos!!

  • I am no math genius, but I think that the behavior of the primes is more chaotic than random, like all things that originate from a singular point (in the case of numbers, infinite nothingness, or zero).

  • yeah, you're no math genius.

  • yeah I know. In actuality, I'm more like the kid who daydreams in the back of his calculus class. I watched this video in the futile hopes that Tao's brilliance would magically rub off upon me and I would become intelligent regarding numbers.

  • The prime sequence is based off of a sieve from the first 2 primes (2&3) : 2-4-2-4-2....with the only exception being a prime multiplied by a prime. Ex: 5,7,11,13,17,19,23, (25 = 5*5), 29,31,(35 = 5*7),37,41,43,47,(49=7*7),53,(­55=5*11).You can use the arctangent of the reciprocal of the prime number to define the azimuth for these exceptions.

  • numbers are a human construct.

  • Terence Tao's intellegence peaks where mine begins!

  • I can get within N of P(N) up to the 6 trillionth prime as an estimate does anyone know where I might find Nth terms of prime larger than the 6 trillionth prime so I can test my estimate in further depth. I also have a very efficient method for better predicting if a randomly generated large number is a prime or not.

    My largest prime so far is 2060 digits long and would be hard to recognise with encryption cracking software but was not found with my new method as I have some work to do yet.

  • Thank you, UCLA, for posting this video. Terrence Tao and his work has further inspired me to pursue mathematics, I someday wish to come to UCLA to take courses or go to lectures under Mr. Tao.