Tadashi Tokieda … the Bob Ross of Mathematics!

Today, my seventh mathematician "profile," replete with tales, toys, and tingles...

If you’re familiar at all with ASMR phenomena (and you ought be) you may well know that a common trigger for ASMR in many folks are old tapes of Bob Ross’s “The Joy of Painting” — only when ASMR got to be a thing some years ago did millions(?) of people suddenly discover they shared a tingly response to Bob’s slow calming voice and ‘happy little accidents.’ ;)

My contention is that Tadashi Tokieda and his mellifluous voice is the Bob Ross of recreational mathematics! I think I could sit and listen to him read the Stanford University phone directory (of course he would find some way to intermingle science and math into it)!

First, IF you missed it and want to read a real profile of Dr. Tokieda be sure to peruse the excellent, fascinating portrait Erica Klarreich painted of Tadashi for Quanta Magazine (from which much of my info is taken):

https://www.quantamagazine.org/tadashi-tokieda-collects-math-and-physics-surprises-20181127/

…in the meantime I’ll give a few brush strokes.

Tadashi’s life story reads like a piece of fiction, a Lewis Carroll creation perhaps… except of course for it being real! If you wrote up his life-story as a novel no publisher would touch it; it would be too unbelievable.

Tadashi Tokieda was born in Japan in 1968 -- the same year that, in a wretched juxtaposition of events, Richard Milhous Nixon was elected President of these here barely-United States. While Nixon was busy conspiring and obstructing, Tokieda grew up immersed in Sudoku, Ken-Ken, and Tae Kwon Do… ok, I’m making that up; I have no idea what Japanese children of his generation were immersed in growing up. In fact he reports that as a youth he was a painter, so perhaps brush art, calligraphy, and Lotus leaves were more his style; he definitely seems like a jack-of-all-trades or maybe a Zen-of-all-trades… at the very time when I was at home eagerly waiting for the Three Stooges to come on TV, Tadashi’s mind was already racing with ideas and questions.

I've previously stated my view that, for mathematicians, the Universe is a playground. No one exemplifies this more than Tokieda. You've heard of Pee Wee's Playhouse, well, for Tadashi the entire world is a playhouse where toys abound.

But a little background... he graduated from Tokyo’s Sophia University in 1989 with a degree in classics (…you know like perhaps maybe 1 in every 150,000 mathematicians does). From there he ventured to France where he was trained as a classical philologist (whatever the hey that is), before discovering his love for mathematics by reading Russian math puzzles on his own -- of course to do that he first had to teach himself Russian! I took Russian in college and can tell you it’s not an easy, nor pretty, language (in fact, personally I'd call it a hard, ugly language) — if I’d had to learn Russian as a kid I’d be hooked on vodka too! (Since Trump got elected though I'll admit to finding a lot of uses for the word "Nyet!").

At any rate, with his new-found love of mathematics Tadashi set off to a place in Britain called Oxford (where they do some academic work)… though first he had to now teach himself English ('cuz they were hugely nonfluent in Russian there) — what the heck, just another silly language to learn. Having travelled widely he is actually fluent in Japanese, French, and English with knowledge of Greek, Latin, classical Chinese, Finnish, Spanish, Russian… all of which would be very impressive until you realize that even Melania Trump claims fluency in at least 5 languages. So, mehh. 

Anyways, in 1991 he completed his BS in math, or maths, as those misbegotten Oxfordians are wont to say. Pomona College in the U.S. doesn’t have a math PhD. program so next Tadashi opted for Princeton to attain his doctorate in mathematics while also studying physics and natural science. He admits it was all “an unusual path into mathematics.” And by “unusual” I believe he means ‘friggin’ nutso!’

He is now a 51-year-old professor at Stanford, where his lectures are apparently so fascinating that students DON’T fall asleep at the sound of his soothing, sonorous voice (but I’ll bet there’s a whole lotta ASMR tingling going on in that lecture hall).

And I can just imagine him addressing each of his students as “Grasshopper” just like the mentor of David Carradine’s character in the old “Kung Fu” television series (for the 3 of my readers old enough to remember that). Or, for a slightly more recent image I can just picture Tadashi standing atop his Stanford desk doing “the crane” pose (above) like Mr. Miyagi in “The Karate Kid,” right before blowing the students’ minds with some demonstration with paper and scissors. OK, so I have an overactive imagination… which should, by the way, be a good thing given Tadashi’s whole approach to math. But enough stereotyping, just because he’s Japanese… and knows 37 languages, and is brilliant and insightful, and the sort of teacher we all want… for every class we ever take, enough already (but seriously, could we maybe clone him?). 

Here's one short sample of his work (which often combines math and physics):



And here are a couple more pages for his videos. Please watch them and write me an essay by noon tomorrow on all that you've learned (or the tingles you experienced).

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tadashi+tokieda
http://www.msri.org/web/msri/public/tadashis-toys

Tokieda has repeatedly said that one element that excites him about about math and science is “surprise.” Surprise can be the newness of the unexpected or it can also be discovering that an assumption made, or something thought understood, is actually wrong. Either way surprise is a gift. He says every surprise “makes us ever-so-slightly but substantially smarter.” Personally, my idea of a momentous surprise would be waking up tomorrow morning, turning on NPR news, and learning that Donald Trump has resigned overnight — considerably more thrilling than the Fibonacci sequence, and virtually as invigorating as Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

And needless to say, I would vote for Tadashi for President of the U.S. at the drop of a hat… or kimono. Or, better yet, make him Secretary of Education (since currently, heavens-to-betsy, we seem to lack one).

Tadashi is famous for his love of “toys.” He’s essentially an 8-year-old trapped in a grown man’s body! But unlike the toys easily bought at your local Walmart or Target, Tadashi’s are familiar things free (or cheap) in nature or readily around the household (cups, paperclips, cookie cutters, pencils, ribbons, rope, porn tapes, etc.; OK, I threw that last bit in to see if you're still reading) -- things we take for granted and therefore tend to have untested assumptions about… ripe, in a sense, for surprises. As Erica Klarreich put it, “these are not to be mistaken for oversimplified teaching implements but rather instruments of surprise that are designed to encourage a collaborative discovering experience.”

And is it just coincidence that Tadashi shares the same initials as Terry Tao? Me-thinkest NOT! Then there’s always that other T.T. genius, Tom Toles:

What we really need in this country is a good Tao Party.
Oh well, moving on....

A new talk or video from Tadashi is always something to look forward to. A frequent question Tokieda hears after many of his talks is the age-old, ‘but does this have any practical use?’ His answer is as simple as his toys are: he says his demonstrations make children happy, and what’s more important than THAT!

(pssst… don’t tell him, but I have a li'l secret… he makes a LOT of adults happy, as well!...
just like Mr. Miyagi did).

So here's to Tadashi Tokieda!... oh, and one more thing: wax on, wax off!

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Prior math profiles have been of: 

Matt 

Evelyn 

David 

Sean

Cathy

Al