Terence Tao

You can do that.

I mean, that's another sort of flip side.

I mean, a lot of problems that we solve, some of them do have practical application, and that's great.

But if you stop thinking about a problem, so he hasn't published since in this field, but that's fine.

There's many, many other people who've done so as well.

I guess one thing I didn't realize initially with the Fields Medal is that it sort of makes you part of the establishment.

Most career mathematicians just focus on publishing the next paper, maybe getting promoted to one rank, and starting a few projects, maybe taking some students or something.

But then suddenly people want your opinion on things.

You have to think a little bit about things that you might just so foolishly say because you know no one's going to listen to you.

It's more important now.

Is it constraining to you?

I have a lot less free time than I had previously.

I mean, mostly by choice.

I mean, obviously I have the option to sort of decline.

So I decline a lot of things.

I could decline even more.

Or I could acquire a reputation of being so unreliable that people don't even ask anymore.

I love the different algorithms here.

This is great.

It's always an option.