The work of Terence Tao

  • Charles Fefferman

    Princeton University, USA
The work of Terence Tao cover
Download Chapter PDF

A subscription is required to access this book chapter.

Abstract

Mathematics at the highest level has several flavors. On seeing it, one might say:

  • (A) What amazing technical power!
  • (B) What a grand synthesis!
  • (C) How could anyone not have seen this before?
  • (D) Where on earth did this come from?

The work of Terence Tao encompasses all of the above. One cannot hope to capture its extraordinary range in a few pages. My goal here is simply to exhibit a few contributions by Tao and his collaborators, sufficient to produce all the reactions (A)... (D). I shall discuss the Kakeya problem, nonlinear Schrödinger equations and arithmetic progressions of primes.