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Terence Tao Runs the Mathematician Gauntlet

Terence Tao runs the gauntlet of GOAT mathematicians. How far does he stop? Or does he clear?

May the best mathematician win.

Terence Tao

Round 1: Laplace

Round 2: Lagrange

Round 3: Cauchy

Round 4: Gauss

Round 5: Euler



Feats for Terence Tao:

  • Widely considered the world's best mathematician
  • One of the youngest Fields Medalists
  • Won the IMO Gold Medal at age 13, the youngest in history
  • Has done work in multiple different branches of math, contributing significantly to each
    • Examples would be his work in the Collatz conjecture and Navier Stokes problem
  • Called "The Mozart of Math"
  • It has been stated that the best way to figure out a problem is to get Terence Tao interested in it
  • Authored/Co-authored over 300 research papers
R1: Laplace has an incredible resume, to put it lightly. He has been called the Newton of France, and is stated to have been superior to the vast majority of his colleagues. He is known for foundational ideas, such as the Laplacian, Laplace's equation, and the Laplace transform, to list a few. But even more important than that, he is arguably one of the sole founders of (modern) celestial mechanics, by translating the previously geometric work into calculus. Not only that, he predicted the existence of black holes, more than 2 centuries before Albert Einstein's groundbreaking work would lay the mathematical foundation for their existence, and 250+ years before their experimental proof. Based on these feats alone, I would be tempted to give this victory to Laplace.
However, one has to be fair when comparing mathematicians from the 18th century to those from the 21st century. Mathematics was far "simpler" back then, requiring far less specialization and allowing for more breadth of knowledge. In addition, statistically, it would actually make sense for Tao to be more intelligent, due to the massive difference in population.
Despite all these facts, I am still leaning toward giving Laplace the W here. His massive influence is absolutely undeniable, along with his incredible predictive skills. Being compared to Newton is incredible, and shows the level that he operated on.
Because of this, I say that Laplace wins. Terence Tao unfortunately does not progress further than this.
As the hater below me once said, these guys don't compare to the real GOATs.


Comment below, and let me know if you agree or disagree!


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