Terence Tao was a child prodigy, and became a mathematics professor in the United States at age 24. In his early 30s he won the Fields Medal, known as 'the Nobel Prize of Mathematics'. Tao is considered one of the greatest living mathematicians, in part because of the breadth of his contributions to the field – from finding new patterns in prime numbers to solving several of the "unsolvable" Erdős problems.

On Monday, the King's Birthday, Tao was awarded Australia's highest civilian honour, the Companion of the Order of Australia.

In this bonus episode of The Briefing, Terence Tao, AC, speaks with Natarsha Belling about the pleasures of solving problems, and how maths makes the world a less scary place.

If you want more Terence Tao, one of the YouTube channels he mentions is 3Blue1Brown, and Tao is featured on an episode.

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