The secret to a happy life from the genius with the highest IQ in the world

As one of the people with the highest IQ in human history, despite being known as a child prodigy from a very young age, the Australian mathematician has a simple, happy life, completely different from many other geniuses.

Outstanding prodigy

Terence Tao was born on July 17, 1975 in Adelaide, Australia, to Chinese parents who immigrated to Australia from Hong Kong. His father is a pediatrician, his mother has a bachelor's degree from the University of Hong Kong and was a high school math teacher.

Terence Tao showed exceptional mathematical ability from a very young age. His father said that thanks to watching TV shows, Terence learned numbers and letters without anyone knowing. It was only when his parents took him to a family reunion when he was only 2 years old that people became aware of his talent when Terence taught math and English to a 5-year-old boy.

Terence Tao showed his talent at the age of 2.

At the age of 5, Terence started school. However, after 6 weeks, his parents withdrew him from school when they realized that Terence was not ready and the teachers did not know how to teach him.

Terence started going back to school at the age of 5 like his peers. Three years later, the Chinese-Australian boy started attending high school. At the age of 9, Terence started taking university-level courses.

At age 8, Terence scored a 760 (out of 800) on the SAT Math test and was one of only two children in the history of the Johns Hopkins Exceptional Talents Program to score over 700. He has been taking college-level mathematics courses since age 9.

In 1986, when he was only 10 years old, he first participated in the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) and continuously for 3 years from 1986 to 1988, he participated in this most famous math competition in the world for excellent high school students.

At 13, he became the youngest person to win a gold medal in IMO history. Tao graduated from university and received a master's degree from Flinders University (Australia) at the age of 17. In 1992, he won a Fulbright scholarship to do research at Princeton University (USA) and received his doctorate at the age of 20.

At the age of 24, he was appointed professor at the University of Los Angeles and is the youngest professor in the history of this university to date.

Considered “one of the greatest minds in mathematics today”, Terence Tao has won a series of prestigious awards, including the Fields Prize - Nobel Prize in Mathematics - at the age of 31.

Simple happiness

In many cases, child prodigies, whose talent was revealed early, had almost no childhood and had to endure pressure, even unhappiness, due to society's high expectations. Terence can be considered a rare case, growing up in a family with very understanding parents who always put their child's comfortable and happy life first.

Terence is happy with his wife and two children.

Thanks to his parents' wisdom, the math prodigy grew up normally, except that he possessed extraordinary intelligence compared to other children.

Looking at his simple appearance and the smile always on his lips, no one would think that Terence Tao is a mathematician who often buries his head in difficult research projects.

His wife is an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Although both of them are very busy with work, they still make time for their two children and occasionally invite colleagues home for a home-cooked meal. Thanks to that, he not only receives respect for his outstanding talent but also becomes a beloved professor in the eyes of his colleagues and students.

With an ordinary childhood, a happy family, a brilliant career, an equally talented wife, and two intelligent, adorable children, Terence's life can be considered luckier than most other child prodigies.

“I am very happy. Maybe when I am 60, I will look back at what I have done. But right now, I want to spend my time solving a series of mathematical problems,” Terence replied when asked how he felt about success.

According to Danviet