[fiforpg]

My first distracted thought upon reading this title on HN: cool, Terry Tao is finally getting his own army!

Jokes aside, Tao also has a nice write-up in AMS Notices on this experience and how it influenced his career:

https://www.ams.org/notices/202007/rnoti-p1007.pdf

[svat]

That AMS article ("A Close Call: How a Near Failure Propelled Me to Succeed") is great and sobering. I am sure it has helped some people, by showing that even Terence Tao cannot succeed without working hard.

> this was the first time I had performed poorly on an exam that I was genuinely interested in performing well in. But it served as an important wake-up call and a turning point in my career. I began to take my classes and studying more seriously. I listened more to my fellow students and other faculty, and I cut back on my gaming. I worked particularly hard on all of the problems that my advisor gave me […] In retrospect, nearly failing the generals was probably the best thing that could have happened to me at the time.

See also https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/ which among other things links to "Work hard": https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/work-hard/

[lordnacho]

Fascinating. I guess everyone has had that experience of "hey how does that guy never f*ck up his exams?". To an extent I was that guy in high school. In uni I wasn't, but I knew people who seemingly always got top marks. I guess everyone hits a wall at some point.

[klyrs]

I was hoping he was going to apply the combinatorial nullstellensatz to solve the Byzantine Generals Problem...

[akira2501]

I misread it as Tery Tao's genitals. I had a very different experience.