Terence Tao: The Cosmic Distance Ladder, UCLA
202K views · Oct 26, 2010 · Science & Technology
Comments · 219
@TheAustrianAnimations87 · 1 year ago
Nice to see that Tao is talking about astronomy again after over 14 years.
107
@shinnyii · 1 year ago
3b1b’s animations really bring this to life
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@AngTong · 1 year ago
I'm so glad Tao is revisiting this, supercharged by 3blue1brown's animations!
109
@greg55666 · 8 years ago
This was really cool because it has utterly nothing to do with what he does for a living; it was just a history lecture anyone could have given, but it was totally fascinating from beginning to end.
58
@tysswe1 · 13 years ago
He seems like such a nice person. One of those you would like to hang out with. Not like does wannabees like langan who thinks that they are so smart and look down on others. This guy reminds me of dr daniel jacksson of stargate!
31
@tthtlc · 3 years ago
This talk is a classic how to give a speech lesson: Know your audience well, and choose your topic carefully. This content is all new to me, because I am not into astrophysics or astronomy. For an audience of mathematician, choosing a mathemtically related story and content will have bored the audience to DEATH as it may have been heard so many times.
6
@flippinrawks · 15 years ago
"astronomers would kill for 8% accuracy"-Terence Tao
89
@powerfulwords · 15 years ago
Best lecture I've seen in some time - so clear and helpful in understanding the history & development in understanding distances in space. Thank you!
30
@jonnie303 · 4 years ago
On Kepler - "If Einstein calls you a genius you're really doing well"
5
@greg55666 · 8 years ago
The story about Kepler figuring out the orbit of Mars gave me goosebumps.
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@AC1957-z8y · 7 years ago
From a mathematician! Absolutely brilliant
18
@hubomba · 13 years ago
Guy is super productive as a mathematician. Go check out his blog and all of the paper's he spits out. He has won a fields medal back in 2006 and in 2012 he proved that every odd number greater than 1 is the sum of at most five primes,without invoking the Riemann Hypothesis. This helps improve the status on proving Weak Goldbach's. The purpose of this lecture was obviously for the general public and more as a science history talk.
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