Tadashi Tokieda

"[L]ife is very short and the universe is a wonderful place, and there is so much to see, and so much to experience, and so much to become more intelligent about... [T]he only way you can do it is to have your personal (however modest)... experience of various phenomena... happenings and... events. ...[T]elling about something (this is a meta-comment about something) instead of doing the actual thing, is the worst way to approach science... Im not going to tell anyone about this and deprive them of the pleasure of seeing the phenomenon themselves."

"You can Google my name, and ... There are lots of videos that they put out online... and you can watch these. However, even that is only a substitute. Theres nothing that replaces your own touch. Trying things yourself, and indeed noticing curiosities in nature itself."

"So Im not such a great believer in talent. Maybe Id rather use the word ... because... I find that the people talk too much about the genius, and... correspondingly to the... in music and... mathematics... Thats a dangerous word, and Im not sure that its socially beneficial to talk about... whether it exists or not. ...Maybe scientifically you can talk about the concept of genius, but it... does more damage sociologically, than it does good."

"Im fortunate enough to be friends and personally acquainted with some of the leading mathematicians of our age, but... I have never met a genius. They are all understandable. They are wonderful, wonderful people, and they really love what they are doing, and their creations... open up a whole world for you... but I dont think... I ever met a genius. ...In practical terms, its much more useful to ...focus on other things. So thats why Im skirting around your question on innate ability."

"If you... came back from a very nice trip... Lots of adventures and lots of wonderful experience... and... relaxing one evening... with your family, and you tell your stories, your family are drawn in... I can already...imagine hearing... laughter and... clapping hands and gasps of breath... [Y]oure communicating very well... [Y]ou do the same thing with science. Its not difficult at all. Absolutely not! In fact the onus is on the other side. Why are people so incompetent? ...[B]ecause their agenda is somewhere else and... who can blame them? ...As humans you want to have a comfortable life. You want to have some... socially recognized position and... security... and the society requires that you communicate in a certain way, which is not at all the way science should be communicated, if your agenda is not one of those."

"Nature is doing everything in perfect harmony... [W]herever you see and whichever [way] you look, there is something fundamental happening, and there are thousands and tens of thousands of laws of nature that are being satisfied at the same time... [M]any of those laws of Nature are... yet unknown to humans, but its amazing how coordinated Nature is. Its working all the time! So even when you are fed up, and you close your books, and your professor leaves the room, and go into vacation time, and your internet is down, and so on, you think science stops existing and it stops existing for humans, but Nature keeps going."

"[E]very human life... is unique, especially seen from the inside. ...You might look like the boring doldrums and the standard... path to somebody else, but for each individual... that person is living only once, and unique experiences... are not... replaceable by anything else... Im not sure that my experience is qualitatively different from other peoples... [P]eople struggle through various difficulties and have moments of joy and... discovery and sometimes... get fed up and... want to leave... [T]hen sometimes they come back and so on... I dont think that its that different. ...People should realize that their experience is unique and its interesting, if you make it interesting. ...[I]f you decide that, "Oh, Im a boring person..." of course you become, , a boring person... [O]ther people will not help you out. Theyll say youre boring, but... you live only once, and... Im sure theres lots going on in your brain that the rest of the world cannot see, naturally... [Y]ou should cherish it..."

"Different cultures... until recently, used... science in different styles... [M]athematics, which is supposed to be the most universal of these... If you do zoology or geology or things like that which are geographically constrained, different countries might so things differently, but mathematics is... as universal as any human endeavor can get... [N]onetheless... the Russians... write and think about mathematics in a way very different from how Americans thought and wrote, and the French wrote... and thought mathematics in a way very different from how the Japanese did, and so on... [Y]ou can tell instantly which school, which culture, it came from."

"[I]ts just that mathematics is an unforgiving subject where any misunderstanding, any lack of understanding shows immediately, whereas in the rest of human endeavors you can keep going by faking for quite a long time. So in that way, yes, the language frames how you understand mathematics, but in that very very practical way. ...[T]he best way to improve your chance of future advance in mathematics is to practice, and improve your native language."

"People say... discovering things is difficult and... extracting science from everyday life, and the mundane facts... requires talent and special aptitude and so on. I believe thats wrong for the following reason. The reason presupposes a certain belief and outlook on the universe. My outlook is... people say... "I dont like science." Thats fair enough... and "Oh, I like science, but... I get tired after a while and I cant continue for so long"... [T]hats very very reasonable. Or, "I try very very hard but I cant get through some difficulties." Well, whats more human than that? Sure, but... however fragile and... weak humans are, theres... one... creature (anthropomorphically speaking)... who keeps practicing science very very successfully, in fact with 100% success, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with no stop... and has been doing it for ages and ages... everywhere you go, and thats Nature herself."

"[T]he one lesson that I drew from coming in from... lots and lots of detours. ...[T]he other side of the coin. ...I started doing mathematics seriously quite late ...That had interesting consequences. ...Most people in mathematics came into mathematics early ...typically in your teens ...[T]he phenomenon of exists ...only in music and mathematics. ...[C]hild prodegies exist primarily as performers, and the mathematical equivalent is problem solvers, rather than theory builders, and the music equivalent would be s. Its true that Mozart was a child prodigy in composition, but on the whole... performers and problem solvers are the dominant types of child prodigies... [T]his phenomenon only exists in music and mathematics, and correspondingly, they come in quite early... Innate or not... it involves a lot of ... Well, maybe there is such a thing as talent... but one necessary condition for a child prodigy... is... the... that could bear with long long long hours of enormous amounts of training, and sometimes it becomes an obsession. ...Im aware that child prodigies exist in chess and in ... and in go and so on, but thats... a small variation on mathematics... I dont know about innateness and... Im not sure about... talent. ...[T]he human brain is a very complicated machine and it would be very surprising if there is no... innate difference between one brain and another... after all, there are innate differences between one body and another... I have seen lots and lots of mathematics students... who are very talented... by the standard judgement... But ultimately... on the whole, I am simplifying... its really the effort, and how much you really like the subject that made a difference as to ultimate success."

"Watching videos is much better than a stupid person like me telling you about this, so thats really the worst possible way to proceed, but even watching videos is no good. You should really try those things yourself and... discover things yourself. Theres so much, so much out there."