UCLA Mathematician Wins Fields Medal

Colleges & Universities University of California - Los Angeles
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<p>Today, Professor Terence Tao was awarded the Fields Medal (the Nobel Prize of Mathematics) for his research in “partial differential equations, combinatorics, harmonic analysis and additive number theory”. This medal is awarded once every four years; the 2006 winners belong to Princeton, UC Berkeley, University of Paris, and for the first time ever, UCLA. From the looks of it, the mathematics department is going utterly insane right now.</p>

<p>Professor Tao was my Math 33A professor in Winter 2005, and one of the more amicable lecturers during my time here. Some of the Mathematics Honors students actually stuck around after lecture to discuss working under him, instead of merely homework and upcoming midterms… I am honored to have conversed face-to-face with this extraordinary gentleman. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>Official UCLA announcement and dictum from the International Congress of Mathematicians:
<a href=“http://www.ucla.edu/about/faculty/tao.html[/url]”>http://www.ucla.edu/about/faculty/tao.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://www.mathunion.org/General/Prizes/2006/TaoENG.pdf[/url]”>http://www.mathunion.org/General/Prizes/2006/TaoENG.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>AMAZING! Give the man a raise!!! Keep him at UCLA! Don’t let MIT steal him!</p>

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<p>I heard this guy teaches Math 132 Complex Analysis…if I get a chance I will take it with him</p>

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<p>Jesus Christ this guy is a frigging genius!!..He’s up there with John Nash, Descartes, Riemann. Wow a PhD at the age of 20 at Princeton Unversity, that’s insane. I would love to meet this guy.</p>

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<p>I watched the video, he said something about it being sunnier here than Princeton… maybe it’s not MIT we have to be worried about, but Caltech instead :p</p>

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<p>here’s something funny…on the math department homepage:</p>

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<p>so which one is the nobel? Abel Prize or Fields Medal? hahaha</p>

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<p>The Fields Medal is the prize more likely to be the “Nobel Prize of Mathematics” because it’s much more prestigious; the Abel Prize is awarded annually by the Norwegian government, whereas the Fields Medal is awarded once every four years by the International Congress of Mathematicians, an exclusive academic organization akin to the Nobel Foundation. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>Direct link to the spotlight video:
<a href=“http://www.ucla.edu/video/faculty_terence-tao_fields-medal.wmv[/url]”>http://www.ucla.edu/video/faculty_terence-tao_fields-medal.wmv&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>how does one research numbers? :p</p>

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<p>stupid Guardian article doesn’t mention Los Angeles</p>

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<p>Another record: he’s the youngest person to win gold at IMO (the record still holds today)</p>

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<p>And for the record, there were no winners from UCB from that list.</p>

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<p>Also for the record, Citan’s list didn’t mention that Grigori Perelman (the one who actually declined the Fields Medal) was a faculty member at UCB before he became a recluse. :rolleyes:</p>

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<p>Well, one person doesn’t represent the whole dept. Some people put too much emphasis on rare awards like that. The fact that so few people are awarded means any university will be lucky to just have one winner. Hence the presence of any of those individuals may be more a reflection of luck rather than the relative strength of the program. Of course, UCLA’s program must be decent otherwise a guy like him wouldn’t be there at the first place. Other than that, it doesn’t mean it’s better than other strong departments that don’t have any winner (like UCB). Didn’t one of Tao’s collegues say something like “UCLA is lucky to have him” or “we are lucky to have him”?</p>

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<p>^^^</p>

<p>You should create a company, Sam.</p>

<p>“Buzz Killers, Inc.”</p>

<p>You’ll go around the country, killing people’s buzzes for no reason other than to be a killjoy. :p</p>

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<p>I hope to take a class with him.</p>

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<p>Here are the courses that Professor Tao teaches at UCLA:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/[/url]”>http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>At this point however, undergraduates won’t get a chance with him, unless they’re one of the Mathematics majors with departmental honors now scrambling for a piece of his wisdom. Even if you could enroll into his lecture, it would fill up instantaneously on the first pass. In retrospective, I am grateful to have been enrolled in the only lower-division class he’s ever taught. :rolleyes:</p>

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<p>I will try to get in if he teaches Math 132 again</p>

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<p>actually he is teaching Fourier Analysis (MATH 247A) this fall and only 14/40 seats have been filled…we just don’t appreciate mathematicians :rolleyes:</p>

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<p>Math majors can enroll in grad courses just like that?</p>

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<p>No I think its limited to grads. I wonder when he is going to teach another undergraduate class. How many of you are actually math majors?</p>