But surely you're not going to mention this as potentially factual, and then praise his dedication and work ethic... right?
If your cutoff of "world class mathematician" is a few hundred or thousand people, then no chance. If their cutoff is "earn a comfortable living" and the top 10% of the world is 800,000,000 people most of whom don't study mathematics, then can an average intellect with an obsession for math end up working a job a normal person might call 'mathematician' by working on AutoCAD or 3D rendering game engine or industrial statistics and process control or economics or vehicle aerodynamics and be in the top 10% of the world in mathematical ability? Possibly yes. And you can adjust the numbers and criterion to get a yes or no whichever way you like.
Good idea, I'll do that :)
>can an average intellect with an obsession for math end up
>working on AutoCAD or 3D rendering game engine or industrial statistics and process control or economics or vehicle aerodynamics and be in the top 10% of the world in mathematical ability?
I think this does happen quite a bit and the need for strong math in these difficult areas is so great that there will never be enough people as briliant as Tao to fill the positions.
That's so far outside the mainstream anyway, most systems are going to screen the rare person like that out without understanding why.
Now what happens when those having top 10% of ability are very excellent themselves, but cases come up that would yield only to a Tao level of "natural-born" problem-solver?
Nobody would ever know :\
Good, we don't need billions of them anyway.
I wish modern society would quit focusing on individual intelligence over collective intelligence. We can take something like the microprocessor, for example. The smart group that designed the microprocessor was not the same group that designed the software nor the group the built the parts nor the group the assembled the device. However, every group is equally important.