Otto Kretschmer

Any evidence that his parents' methods were non standard? To my knowledge little is known about his early life other that he showed extraordinary mathematical ability from an early age. I'm not saying nurture did not contribute to his success. But my reasoning tells me that in his case nature was the dominant factor.

Having support and tailor made education certainly helped him realize his potential. But it did not create it - he showed extreme math aptitude since age 2-3 so his brain somehow has to be wired differently... If education and support was the key here then the same pattern of lifetime achievement would repeat itself in other children. Yet there are thousands of math or physics teachers' kids who don't achieve nowhere near as much as Tao.

What's the future of quantum computers? I recently watched a video by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Michio Kaku on which the latter claimed that quantum computers will replace classical computers since they are thousands if not millions of times more powerful. Do you agree with that assessment or not? Neither Tyson nor Kaku has any specialized knowledge of computer science, both of them have PhDs in different fields and likely don't know more about computers than an average science enthusiast. So they might be wrong... Or are they?

What's your opinion on Dharmic religions i.e. Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism? I personally like them more than Abrahamic religions since they are more tolerant and don't have the same "who doesn't believe in me goes to hell" approach. A nice introduction to Buddhism:

You're sure of that? Most people struggle with high school math. At the same time Terence Tao was already learning university level math by the time he was 9 years old and had a PhD at 21 and a professorship at 24. Those people simply are different from an average person.

Have any studies been done on individuals with very high ontelligence? How exactly are the brains of guys like Terence Tao or Ed Witten different from an average brain that makes them so smart? Is it about brain size? Size of some brain areas? Some unusual synaptic properties? Whatever?

Since IQ tests have the celling of 160, are IQs higher than that possible or not?