Recommendations you can check.
Mathematician at UCLA, Fields Medal 2006; writes the blog What's new.
8 things
DetexifySoftware
Detexify has been the quickest way for me to locate the TeX code for a symbol that I couldn't quite remember
A blog post on useful but little-known features of the tools he uses in his mathematical work.
2017-07-07·terrytao.wordpress.com ↗
Boomerang for GmailSoftware
Boomerang for Gmail. Another Chrome plugin for Gmail, which does two main things. Firstly, it can "boomerang" away an email from your inbox to return at some specified later date (e.g. one week from today). I found this useful to declutter my inbox
A blog post on useful but little-known features of the tools he uses in his mathematical work.
2017-07-07·terrytao.wordpress.com ↗
TeXnicCenterSoftware
I probably only use a tiny fraction of the functionality that TeXnicCenter offers, but one little feature I quite like is the ability to bookmark a portion of the TeX file
A blog post on useful but little-known features of the tools he uses in his mathematical work.
2017-07-07·terrytao.wordpress.com ↗
Mathematical ProblemsOther David Hilbert
David Hilbert, "Mathematical Problems", 1900. (Most famous for the list of 23 problems themselves, but the preamble is highly recommended reading.
A blog post collecting books and writings on the purpose, value and nature of mathematics.
2026-09-12·terrytao.wordpress.com ↗
A Mathematician's ApologyBook G. H. Hardy
G. H. Hardy, "A Mathematician's Apology", 1940 (somewhat dated at this point, but still interesting)
A blog post collecting books and writings on the purpose, value and nature of mathematics.
2026-09-12·terrytao.wordpress.com ↗
On teaching mathematicsOther Vladimir Arnold
Vladimir Arnold, "On teaching mathematics", 1997 (somewhat provocative in tone, but still interesting)
A blog post collecting books and writings on the purpose, value and nature of mathematics.
2026-09-12·terrytao.wordpress.com ↗
TeX for GmailSoftware
TeX for Gmail. A Chrome plugin that lets one write TeX symbols in emails sent through Gmail (by writing the LaTeX code and pressing a hotkey, usually F8).
A blog post on useful but little-known features of the tools he uses in his mathematical work.
2017-07-07·terrytao.wordpress.com ↗
InkscapeSoftware
I used to use plain text to write mathematical formulae in my images, which always looked terrible. It took me years to realise that Inkscape had the functionality to compile LaTeX within it.
A blog post on useful but little-known features of the tools he uses in his mathematical work.
2017-07-07·terrytao.wordpress.com ↗
Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.
The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.
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The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.
What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:
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