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Terence Tao: commitment

15 Jun 2025 Lex Fridman Podcast #472 – Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI

“Once again, nothing happened. I will move on.” Very occasionally one of these problems or actually solved.”

— Terence Tao

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Speaker
Terence Tao
Attribution
Verified speaker
Claim type
commitment
Recorded
15 Jun 2025
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

Transcript context

…But is that still in the back of your head? Do you return to the prime numbers every once in a while to see? Yeah, when I have nothing better to do, which is less and less. I get busy with so many things these days. But when I have free time and I’m not, I’m too frustrated to work on my real research projects, and I also don’t want to do my administrative stuff or I don’t want to do some errands for my family. I can play with these things for fun. And usually you get nowhere. You have to just say, “Okay, fine. Once again, nothing happened. I will move on.” Very occasionally one of these problems or actually solved. Well, sometimes as you say, you think you solved it and then you forward for maybe 15 minutes and then you think, “I should check this. This is too easy, too good to be true.” And it usually is. What’s your gut say about when these problems would be solved, the twin prime and Goldbach?…

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