![]() Adelaide hasn't changed much, and my parents haven't changed much. Gazette: Are your parents still in Adelaide? I'm happy that they didn't mind that I liked maths. In Asian cultures, there's always a big pressure to do something prestigious like medicine or law, but for some people this is not the best career. Once they realised that I liked maths more than physics, they were happy to let me do what I liked and I'm very grateful for that. They didn't know what it was that you do as a mathematician. Tao: I think initially they were at a loss. ![]() Gazette: Did your parents encourage you to become a mathematician? At age 8 I was in Year 8 for things like English, PhysEd, etc. Gazette: When you skipped all these grades, did you skip them in all disciplines or just maths? ![]() Except I've spent a few summers in Australia, at ANU and UNSW. I've been with UCLA ever since, pretty much. My advisor in Princeton recommended I stay in the States. When I got my Bachelor degree at Flinders University, Garth Gaudry, my advisor, recommended very strongly that I study abroad, so I went to Princeton and completed a PhD. My mother and father had to arrange this with the headmaster and the head of department, so it was very complicated. And when I was at high school I took some maths classes at uni. But I was already taking more advanced maths classes (Year 11), even when I was in primary school I took some high-school maths classes. This meant that I started high school at age 8. ![]() I grew up and stayed here in Adelaide for 16 years. Tao: I was born here, in Australia, in 1975, in Adelaide. Gazette: Could you tell us a bit about yourself? ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |