Terence Tao

Mathematics provides a common language, so we can still talk to each other even if we are thinking in different ways.

But you can tell there's a difference...

set of subsystems being used in the thinking process.

They take different paths.

They're very quick at things that I struggle with and vice versa.

And yet they still get to the same goal.

That's beautiful.

And yeah, but I mean, the way we educate, unless you have like a personalized tutor or something, I mean, education sort of just by initial scale has to be mass produced.

You know, you have to teach the 30 kids, you know, they have 30 different styles.

You can't, you can't teach 30 different ways.

Yeah, it's a tricky problem.

One nice thing is that there are now lots of sources for mathematical enrichment outside the classroom.

So, in my day, there were already math competitions.

And, you know, there are also popular math books in the library.

But,

Now you have YouTube.

There are forums devoted to solving math puzzles.

And math shows up in other places.

For example, there are hobbyists who play poker for fun.

And they, for very specific reasons, are interested in very specific probability questions.