Contact information - Terence Tao

Please do not mail or email me any unsolicited self-authored manuscripts (such as those relating to prime numbers, or to famous unsolved problems, such as the Clay Millennium Prize problems); due to lack of time and high volume of requests, I will not read or comment on any of them, and the manuscripts will be discarded without acknowledgment.  (For referee requests from journals, see below.  For submissions to journals for which I am an editor, see this page.)

• Office: Mathematical Sciences 6183. I have a pigeonhole in MS 6364.  Important note: Unsolicited surprise requests from strangers entering my office are essentially guaranteed to be met with a negative response.
• Mailing address: Terence Tao, UCLA Department of Mathematics, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1555. 
• Office phone: (310) 206-4844.  Important note: Unsolicited surprise requests from strangers over the phone are essentially guaranteed to be met with a negative response.
• Fax: The department fax number is (310) 206-6673.
• Email: tao@math.ucla.edu
• Blog: http://terrytao.wordpress.com
• Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/9264073849
• Pronouns: he, him

The best way to contact me is via e-mail, though if I am traveling it may take up to a week for me to respond.   (If you are a representative of the media, please visit this page instead.)  However, due to time limitations I will have to decline or severely restrict many email requests, including many of the following:

1. Invitations to give seminars, colloquia, lecture series, or attend conferences or programs: It is difficult for me to travel these days for work and family reasons, and due to high demand and the number of existing commitments.  I am currently declining essentially all further invitations to discretionary travel or speaking engagements, especially with regards to international travel, and particularly with regard to events in which substitute speakers for myself are available.  Apologies in advance.   
2. Invitations to join an editorial board, advisory board, organizational, or scientific committee: Due to heavy workload, existing commitments, and high demand, I am currently declining all invitations of this nature (including any "honourary" or "zero-work" positions of this type). 
3. Invitations to publish a monograph, book, lecture notes, etc: I do not have any uncommitted book plans at present.
4. Invitations to contribute data to a project: You are welcome to freely utilise any unpublished material (e.g. short stories, lecture notes, computer code, or slides) on my web page or blog; published material, of course, is subject to copyright.  Source files for these works are usually available on request.  I will be however be unable to donate any significant amount of time to help with migrating data, creating totally new content, or taking on any sort of organisational role for such a project.  In particular, I will not be able to write a preface, introduction, or endorsement for any journal, book, or article, unless there is a direct personal connection between this publication and myself. For similar reasons, I will also be almost certainly unable to contribute to any project involving montages of contributions by N famous people, for some large integer N.  Also, any article that I have uploaded to the arXiv recently will usually be already submitted to an existing journal, and I will not be able to respond to solicitations of that article for any other journal.
5. Invitations to collaborate: Unfortunately due to many existing projects I am not able to consider any further collaborations at this time.
6. Submissions to a journal that I am editor of (AJM, Dynamics of PDE, Analysis & PDE, Forum of Mathematics): Please see this page.
7. Unsolicited manuscripts (other than for submission to a journal): Due to lack of time and many requests, I cannot read or comment on any unsolicited self-authored manuscripts of any sort (such as those relating to prime numbers).  Such manuscripts will be discarded without acknowledgment. If your manuscript is already publication-quality, I suggest uploading it to the arXiv instead.  For advice as to what journal to send one's paper to, please see this page.  For advice on writing papers, please see this page.   
8. Updates to one of my web pages: I am happy to accept corrections on these.  However, several of my web pages, such as my conference list and the local/global well posedness page are obsolete (being replaced by this wiki page and this wiki respectively) and will no longer be updated on this site.
9. Requests for letters of recommendation: I am generally willing to write these (assuming of course that I am already sufficiently familiar with the applicant's work), but typically require at least a month's notice, and very specific information as to where the letters should be sent, in which format, and by what deadline.  A curriculum vitae and list of publications (or a link to a web page containing such information) will be very helpful.  If you have a choice between online application (such as mathjobs) and print application, I would prefer using an online system.  Generally speaking, I will not be able to write physical letters while traveling.
10. Requests to referee a paper: I can still devote some time to refereeing papers, though if the paper is not of major significance and/or can be refereed by a large number of other people then I will be likely to decline the request or give only a quick opinion.  A full report will take between two to four months, depending on the length of the paper and on my own schedule.
11. Requests for Java programming code: See this web page and this directory for my past experiments with Java, including the source code; you are free to use and modify it as you wish, as long as the provenance of the code is acknowledged somewhere.  I will unfortunately not have the time to help you with any specific Java task, and in particular will not assist with homework assignments.  Note also that I am not a professional programmer, and my code is not particularly polished.  Also, the code was written using Java 1.0, and may not necessarily be compatible with modern versions of Java.
12. Requests for help with a math problem: I am happy to answer (or attempt to answer) questions related to one of my papers, books, or classes (but please be as specific as possible, especially regarding your own thoughts on the question; in particular, I will be unable to answer questions of the form "Can you give me a hint on Question X? I can't even get started.").  I also welcome corrections and errata of any form. I unfortunately do not have the time to assist with any other mathematical queries.  In particular I will be unable to read or comment on unsolicited manuscripts, to "troubleshoot" difficulties in a research project, speculate on one's conjectures, engage in sustained discussion on any mathematical topic, or to answer homework problems or other course-related questions not arising from one of my own classes.  For general advice on how to solve mathematical problems, please visit this page.  For general mathematical queries, you can try Math Overflow (for graduate-level or research-level questions), The Art of Problem Solving (for high school or undergraduate-level questions), the Mathematics Stack Exchange (aimed mostly at graduate and undergraduate level questions), or the /r/math subreddit (particularly for "softer" math questions).  Note that these sites may have specific policies about asking homework questions.
13. Requests for preprints or papers: Please see my preprints page or search the arXiv.  In almost all cases, the arXiv version, which will be linked to from my preprints page, is essentially the final and most updated version.  Source files are generally available on request (and can also usually be obtained directly from the arXiv).
14. Requests for books / questions about books: See my book page for all available sample chapters, errata, and other material related to my various books, as well as updates on the publication status and availability of these books.  I will not be able to respond to solicitations for full-length versions of the books.
15. Requests to exchange links: I do not participate in link exchanges between web pages.  If your link is mathematical in nature, I would suggest visiting the Math Atlas.
16. Requests for an appointment: I currently have only a very limited amount of time available for appointments.  I will give priority to UCLA faculty (including visiting faculty), staff, and students (particularly my own graduate students or students in my classes).  For media-related appointments, please visit this page. Other appointment requests (such as those requesting help on math problems, career issues, educational issues, unsolicited business proposals, advocacy, or presentations of research) will probably be declined due to lack of time.  Please consult my travel schedule below to find out what days I will actually be at UCLA, and email me at least a week in advance of the desired appointment times.
17. Requests for career advice: Please see this page.  Due to lack of time and many requests, I will be unable to provide personalised career advice, but you are welcome to post comments on the above-referenced page (or its subpages).
18. Requests for prefaces, autographs, inspirational words, or endorsements for a book, article, or other product: I will be declining almost all of these requests, especially when I do not have a direct personal connection to the topic of the text and to the target audience.
19. Requests for new blog articles: Sorry, but I do not take requests for specific topics to write about for my blog, nor do I accept unsolicited requests to write guest articles for the blog or to otherwise offer links or content to place on the blog.
20. Requests for interviews: Please see this page.  In general, I will be declining almost all interviews (including those for school projects).
21. Queries on gifted education: Please see this page.  Again, due to lack of time and many requests, I cannot provide personalised advice on these issues.
22. Applications for a position at the UCLA mathematics department: Please visit the http://www.math.ucla.edu/faculty-positions or the graduate admissions page as appropriate.  You are welcome to inform me of your application but I will usually not be involved in the admission process.  In particular I cannot handle admission materials directly, or give any specific advice on what steps to take to increase your chance of admission.  Note that I do not accept students for graduate study with me until they are already at UCLA and have passed their qualifying exams.  (I also plan to only take on approximately one graduate student a year.) See also my page on career advice.
23. Applications for a summer research position, internship, mentorship, CSST, or REU: Unfortunately I do not have the time available to supervise such positions. 
24. Offers of an honorary degree, or honorary membership in an organisation: This is very flattering, but I do not accept honorary degrees. I also do not accept honorary memberships in organisations which I do not have a prior affiliation with.  

Future travel and speaking plans:

• 2022 Mar 15 (Harvey Mudd)
• 2022 Jun 20-26 (Cambridge UK)
• 2022 Jun 27-Jul 1(Edinburgh)
• 2022 Jul 2-5 (Helsinki)
• 2022 Jul 28-29 (Washington DC)
• 2023 Jan 3-Mar 31 (IAS)
• 2023 Feb 13-17 (IPAM)
• 2023 July (Oxford) - very tentative
• 2025 mid-July (Melbourne) - tentative

Due to a high workload and large volume of requests, I am currently declining almost all future invitations to travel.

Past trips: