Terence Tao
Mathematician; Fields Medallist, 2006
Perhaps one character trait which does help is the ability to focus, and perhaps to be a little stubborn. If I learned something in class that I only partly understood, I wasn't satisfied until I was able to work the whole thing out; it would bother me that the explanation wasn't clicking together like it should. So I'd often spend a lot of time on very simple things until I could understand them backwards and forwards, which really helps when one then moves on to more advanced parts of the subject.
Recorded
International Mathematical Union, Interview conducted by the International Mathematical Union on the award of the Fields Medal, OUPblog, Oxford University Press, 1 September 2006
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