Terence Tao
A mathematician of staggering breadth and depth who became the youngest professor at UCLA and won the Fields Medal for solving long-standing problems.
Born 1975 (age 51)·Australian mathematician·Birthday: July 17·Generation X
Biography
Terence Tao's relationship with numbers began almost as soon as he could speak, teaching himself to read and do arithmetic by age two. A genuine child prodigy, he was taking university-level courses by nine and earned his PhD from Princeton at twenty. But what defines Tao is not just his precocity; it's his profound collaborative spirit and his ability to move fluidly between seemingly disconnected fields of mathematics. He has made landmark contributions to partial differential equations, number theory, and harmonic analysis, often by finding unexpected connections. Based at UCLA, he operates like a intellectual hub, frequently working with dozens of collaborators to attack problems that stump others. He demystifies complex ideas through a popular blog, making the frontiers of math accessible. Tao represents a new kind of mathematical genius: deeply brilliant, yet openly communicative and relentlessly productive.
Generation X
1965–1980
The latchkey kids. Raised during divorce, recession, and the end of the Cold War. Skeptical, self-reliant, media-literate. They invented indie culture, grunge, and the early internet — then watched the Boomers take credit.
Terence was born in 1975, placing them squarely in the Generation X. The events that shaped this generation — economic uncertainty, the end of the Cold War, and the rise of personal computing — shaped the world they entered and the choices available to them.
#1 When Terence Was Born
The biggest hits of 1975
#1 Movie
Jaws
Best Picture
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
#1 TV Show
All in the Family
Terence's Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1975Born
Fall of Saigon ends the Vietnam War
Gas: $0.57/galHome: $27,600Min wage: $2.10/hrPresident: Gerald Ford"Love Will Keep Us Together" — Captain & TennilleBest Picture: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1980Started school
John Lennon shot and killed in New York
Gas: $1.19/galHome: $47,200Min wage: $3.10/hrPresident: Jimmy Carter"Call Me" — BlondieBest Picture: Ordinary People
1988Became a teenager
Pan Am Flight 103 bombed over Lockerbie
Gas: $0.90/galHome: $74,800Min wage: $3.35/hrPresident: Ronald Reagan"Faith" — George MichaelBest Picture: Rain Man
1991Could drive
Soviet Union dissolves; World Wide Web goes public
Gas: $1.14/galHome: $82,400Min wage: $4.25/hrPresident: George H.W. Bush"(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" — Bryan AdamsBest Picture: The Silence of the Lambs
1993Could vote
European Union officially established
Gas: $1.11/galHome: $86,600Min wage: $4.25/hrPresident: Bill Clinton"I Will Always Love You" — Whitney HoustonBest Picture: Schindler's List
1996Turned 21
Dolly the sheep cloned
Gas: $1.23/galHome: $99,700Min wage: $4.75/hrPresident: Bill Clinton"Macarena" — Los del RioBest Picture: The English Patient
2005Turned 30
Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans; YouTube launches
Gas: $2.30/galHome: $167,500Min wage: $5.15/hrPresident: George W. Bush"We Belong Together" — Mariah CareyBest Picture: Crash
2015Turned 40
Paris climate agreement; same-sex marriage legalized in the US
Gas: $2.43/galHome: $171,900Min wage: $7.25/hrPresident: Barack Obama"Uptown Funk" — Mark Ronson ft. Bruno MarsBest Picture: Spotlight
2025Turned 50
AI agents go mainstream
Gas: $3.10/galHome: $385,000Min wage: $7.25/hrPresident: Donald Trump"APT." — Rose & Bruno Mars
2026Age 51 today
Gas: $3.91/galPresident: Donald Trump
Key Achievements
- Awarded the Fields Medal in 2006 for his contributions to partial differential equations, combinatorics, and additive number theory.
- Became the youngest full professor ever at UCLA, appointed at age 24.
- Proved, with Ben Green, the Green–Tao theorem, which states that prime numbers contain arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions.
- Holds the James and Carol Collins Chair in Mathematics at UCLA.
- Was a recipient of the MacArthur 'Genius' Fellowship at age 31.
Did You Know?
He scored a 760 on the math SAT at the age of eight.
He maintains a widely read mathematics blog where he discusses research and problem-solving.
He was a gold, silver, and bronze medalist in the International Mathematical Olympiad as a young teenager.
His younger brother, Trevor Tao, is also a mathematician and a former Australia Mathematics Olympiad champion.
“"The good thing about mathematics is that it’s a global enterprise. You can go anywhere, and mathematics is the same."”
