Terence Tao's blog
Shares rank 16 of 26 newsletters by recommenders
Readers recommend it for rigorous, understandable explanations of mathematics that go beyond what journal papers offer, and some say it beats many textbooks.
Readers recommend it for rigorous, understandable explanations of mathematics that go beyond what journal papers offer, and some say it beats many textbooks.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 86%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Clear, rigorous explanations beyond journal papers
“explains in an understandable but rigorous way beyond what would just be in a journal paper”
Comment from 17 Sep 2026 in “Why I didn’t sign the Fields medallists’ letter” “Terrence Tao's blog is better than most textbooks”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “A digestion of the Jacobian conjecture counterexample”
Other newsletters people recommend
The four most recommended other newsletters, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ed Zitron newsletter | 46 | 42 | 52% | 12 | — | — |
| Simon Willison's blog | 21 | 2 | 91% | 9 | — | Approved |
| SemiAnalysis | 20 | 12 | 63% | 8 | — | — |
| acoup.blog | 19 | 0 | 100% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Terence Tao's blogThis page | 6 | 1 | 86% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 7 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Terry Tao's blog rapidly diminishing in quality”
“I find Tao's writing on this very helpful, particularly because a lot of the ideas generalise to most knowledge work.”
“reading the recent slew of guest posts on Tao's blog would be a very good start”
“explains in an understandable but rigorous way beyond what would just be in a journal paper”
“Terrence Tao's blog is better than most textbooks”
“It is a humbling experience to delve in his grown-up blog.”
“This isn't to say that LLMs aren't useful for science; on the contrary.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.