Terence Tao: Six Math Essentials, Harvard Science Center
| When | Monday, November 16, 2026, 6 PM |
| Where | Hall D, Harvard Science Center, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge MA |
| Host | Harvard Book Store, in the Harvard Science Book Talks series |
| Co-hosts | Harvard Division of Science, Harvard Library, Department of Mathematics, CMSA |
| Tickets | RSVP required; free, or book-included (listing range $0-$30); no refunds |
| Format | In person; talk, then book signing |
Terence Tao (UCLA; Fields Medal, MacArthur, Breakthrough Prize) discusses Six Math Essentials, his first popular math book: six ideas, each named in the publisher's description as a gateway. Numbers to quantitative thinking, algebra to abstraction, geometry to calculating beyond what can be seen, probability to reasoning under uncertainty, analysis to taming the very large and the very small, and dynamics as the mathematics of change.
Before the talk
Tao has written in public about AI and mathematics this year; the September 6 brief carries his post on solving problems "by purely AI-powered methods". A question worth bringing: which of the six ideas does he think a model handles least well, and why.
Notes
Notes pending.