Tao, Terence

Terence Tao, (born July 17, 1975, Adelaide, Australia), Australian mathematician awarded a Fields Medal in 2006 “for his contributions to partial differential equations, combinatorics, harmonic analysis and additive number theory.”

Tao received a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Flinders University of South Australia and a doctorate from Princeton University (1996), after which he joined the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Tao’s work is characterized by a high degree of originality and a diversity that crosses research boundaries, together with an ability to work in collaboration with other specialists. His main field is the theory of partial differential equations. Those are the principal equations used in mathematical physics. For example, the nonlinear Schrödinger equation models light transmission in fibre optics. Despite the ubiquity of partial differential equations in physics, it is usually difficult to obtain or rigorously prove that such equations have solutions or that the solutions have the required properties. Along with that of several collaborators, Tao’s work on the nonlinear Schrödinger equation established crucial existence theorems. He also did important work on waves that can be applied to the gravitational waves predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

In work with the British mathematician Ben Green, Tao showed that the set of prime numbers contains arithmetic progressions of any length. For example, 5, 11, 17, 23, 29 is an arithmetic progression of five prime numbers, where successive numbers differ by 6. Standard arguments had indicated that arithmetic progressions in the set of primes might not be very long, so the discovery that they can be arbitrarily long was a profound discovery about the building blocks of arithmetic.

Tao’s other awards include a Salem Prize (2000) and an American Mathematical Society Bocher Memorial Prize (2002).