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by dilawar 50 days ago
When I was in college, I posted a question on math.se about possibility of universal gates like NOR and NAND in multi-level logic. Someone found it interesting and posted it on the mathoverflow in more mathy language . To my surprise, Terry wrote an answer to that question. I still don't get it but I was flexing the whole month.

Terry also took time to respond to comments I posted on his blog and on his google wave posts (I am old). Most of them were incredibly stupid but he took time to respond. Imagine a field medalist responding to a wannabe kid living somewhere in India.

Some of his real analysis notes were published in India that were cheaply available. I learnt about open/close set and convergence/cauchy series from it. I never thought I'd enjoy reading pure mathematics. Another mathematician I found very readable Daniel Spielman (I think it was his notes on smooth analysis). I once picked a book by William Tutte from the library! Never seen a book that was harder to read.

I don't know what the point of my post is.

3 comments

The brilliance of a mathematician like Terry is the the clarity they can bring.

That’s my interpretation of your comment, anyway.

Your point is contextualixing the humans involved, and it is a good and righteous post.
google wave!!! so good
Developed by Terry's older brother at Google