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What Terence Tao thinks about physics

@terence-tao · 42 positions · 0 changes of mind

Mathematician at UCLA, Fields Medal 2006. Writes at terrytao.wordpress.com.

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We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

3 dated positions, 2025, in their own words. Our reading of what Terence Tao has said — not written or endorsed by them.

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  1. Our readingPhysics will be unified again as it has been before; the obstacle is that relativity and quantum mechanics already explain almost everything we can measure.

    Their wordsBut I have faith that we've been doing this for centuries and we've made progress before. There's no reason why we should stop.

    ↗Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #472youtube.com 3rd of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  3. Our readingString theory, the leading candidate for decades, is slowly going out of fashion because it is not matching experiment.

    Their wordsYeah, that was a leading candidate for many decades. I think it's slowly pulling out of fashion. It's not matching experiment.

    ↗Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #472youtube.com 4th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting

  5. Our readingCurrent AI struggles even to rediscover old laws of physics from data, and when it does, contamination from training is the first suspect.

    Their wordsThe dream is you just feed it all this data, and this is here is a new patent that we didn't see before, but it actually, even the current state of the art even struggles to discover old laws of physics from the data.

    ↗Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #472youtube.com 12th of 20 in this recording

    Interesting