FlexiLingo
Terence Tao: Maths ‘the canary in the coal mine’ on AI
Terence Tao is widely celebrated as the world’s greatest living mathematician. He was doing university-level maths at the age of 9, won Gold at the International Mathematical Olympiad at 13 - still the youngest person to have done that - and got his PHD at age 20. At 31 he won the Fields Medal - somewhat equivalent to a Nobel Prize for pure mathematics. He has now embarked on what some might consider the greatest challenge of his life - he’s written a book for a general audience, called Six Maths Essentials. This provided the oppo...
Opens the player: the full transcript, every word clickable, with translation and flashcards.
Is this episode right for you?
B2 · Upper-intermediate
Comfortable if you already follow TV news
- 87% of the words are B1 or easier.
- 191 words a minute: natural, fairly fast speech.
- 78 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.
Try it: tap any word
Real sentences from the start of this episode. Every word is marked with its level.
greatest living mathematician. He was doing university-level maths at the age of nine,
.
ever to do that, and he got his PhD at age 20. At 31 he won the Fields Medal, somewhat
Tap a word to see its meaning in your language.
Do you know these words?
8 harder words from this episode. Tap one to see what it means, then mark it.
Mark a few words and we'll tell you how this episode fits your level.
Is this episode right for you?
B2 · Upper-intermediate
Comfortable if you already follow TV news
- 87% of the words are B1 or easier.
- 191 words a minute: natural, fairly fast speech.
- 78 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.
Transcript
The opening of the episode. The whole transcript is in the player.
harder words (B2+)
Hello and thanks for downloading the More or Less podcast, with a programme that looks at the numbers in the news and in life, and occasionally speaks to world famous mathematicians. I'm Tim Harford. Terrence Tao – actually he goes by Terry – is widely celebrated as the world's
greatest living mathematician. He was doing university-level maths at the age of nine, got a gold at the International Mathematical Olympiad at 13. He's still the youngest person ever to do that, and he got his PhD at age 20. At 31 he won the Fields Medal, somewhat equivalent to a Nobel Prize for pure mathematics. Now he's embarked on what some might consider
the greatest challenge of his life. He's written a book for a general audience called Six Maths Essentials. He gave us the opportunity to talk to Terry about maths. And in the face of some seismic mathematical claims from AI companies what its future might be. So tell us what the idea of the book is.
That was the opening. The rest of the episode (9 min) is in the player: every word clickable, with translation, saved words and flashcards.
Continue in the playerAutomatically generated from the audio. May contain errors. Audio belongs to its publisher and is played from their feed. Rights holders can request removal — copyright & takedown policy