
Terry Tao about his own childhood as child prodigy (1985, at ten) - zjj
http://terrytao.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/terrys-my-recollections.doc
======
DarkShikari
Speaking of child prodigies--I've noticed something extremely odd about
childhood ability in my own experiences.

I got a 5 on the Calculus AB AP exam when I was ~10 years old and around the
same time got a ~1490 (I don't remember exactly) on the SAT. 6 years later, I
did no better on the SAT than I did when I was a preteen and I didn't feel as
if I was any better at math than I had been 6 years earlier.

Despite the fact that I had done so well at math as a child, I was never
competitive in the higher-level math competitions like the AMC and AIME, where
I consistently scored mediocre (~110 on the AMC, ~0-1 on the AIME). I went to
school with plenty of classmates who scored near-perfect on both competitions
and yet had not been nearly as much of a supposed "prodigy" as I was.

Today, I doubt I am even _above average_ at my college; I am relieved to have
simply passed the math courses required for my major with barely-tolerable
grades. And yet whenever I read stories of "real" prodigies, I never see
anything like this--they always seem to continue their trend and prove to be
brilliant mathematicians. Or is this selection bias?

I still don't fully understand what happened. Does mathematical ability
plateau at an early age? Is there something special about courses beyond basic
calculus that are inherently more difficult? Did my skill simply stop
developing because I lost interest?

~~~
nl
" And yet whenever I read stories of "real" prodigies, I never see anything
like this--they always seem to continue their trend and prove to be brilliant
mathematicians."

No, it's very, very rare that child prodigies go on to have significant impact
in the field they were brilliant at as a child.

See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_of_Mathematically_Precoci...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_of_Mathematically_Precocious_Youth)
for some details. (I read a very interesting article about Tao previously
which addressed this - trying to find it now)

~~~
nl
Hmm. Reading the papers from that study group seems to prove me 100% wrong. I
suspect my selective referencing skills need improving.

~~~
sireat
Note: I read the abstract for the 35 year study and glanced over the paper.

The researchers findings seem to be that these prodigies are for most part
well adjusted/succesful, but do not necessarily go/stay into math/science
fields.

Are those the findings, or is there something more?

~~~
nl
They split the prodigies into science/math people and humanities people. I
skim read the paper, and it showed a correlation between the field they were
talented in and achievement in that field.

------
mcav
The article in text format (rather than MS Word):

[http://gist.github.com/raw/190081/6731e974f7175b26e351b40dff...](http://gist.github.com/raw/190081/6731e974f7175b26e351b40dffb433bd75d1ec55/gistfile1.txt)

------
mechanical_fish
This is a link to a _Word_ document. WTF? Do people still write those things?

~~~
catch23
apparently mathematicians use them. extremely smart ones.

~~~
zackattack
On a tangent, bragging about intelligence you can't apply is like bragging
about a car you can't drive. So you see, can't overvalue innate intelligence.
Although it may just be a sign that he has no reason to be in touch with
today's trends.

~~~
gjm11
Huh? I don't think I've ever known him brag about his intelligence (note: I
don't know him personally, but I do read his blog), and he has about as much
intelligence to brag about as any person alive. And he applies it all the
time; that's his job, and he is very very good at it.

Your comments _look_ like they're meant as a criticism of Tao, but I don't see
how to apply any of them to anything about him. Would you like to clarify?

(Note: the document linked from here does include the word "intelligent" -- in
some such phrase as "I may be considered an intelligent child". It may be
worth bearing in mind that at this point he was a 10-year-old who had been
asked, on account of his prodigious mathematical skills, to talk to a bunch of
very eminent adults. It may also be worth bearing in mind that he immediately
goes on to say something like "but I still have a whole lot to learn before I
have any hope of being as wise as any of you in this room".)

~~~
zackattack
They aren't a criticism of Tao. It was a tangent. I'm saying that intelligence
that can only be applied to a few esoteric fields is overrated. I thought a
thread about child prodigies would be a good opportunity to make that comment.

------
mike463
It's absolutely true -- the best way to learn something is to have to teach it
to someone else. You must get organized and this focuses you.

