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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

I wrote about what the recent remarkable advances in AI for mathematics means for the subject--and for every creative human endeavour. "If mathematics can be hollowed out in this way, then every creative field is vulnerable." @thespectator1828.bsky.social

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Formalising a well-cited 20-year old physics paper on the stability of the two Higgs doublet model in Lean invalidates the main theorem! "It ... raises the uncomfortable question of how many physics papers would not pass this higher level of scrutiny." Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2603.08139

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

STFC funding for particle physics, nuclear physics, and astronomy—which falls under “curiosity-driven” science—to be reduced to 70% of its 2024–25 budget. This is how you cripple the UK’s scientific and economic future. www.science.org/content/arti...

science.org

U.K. physics community braces for deep funding cuts

Research council to slash funding for particle physics, nuclear physics, and astronomy by 30%, prompting alarm across the research community

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

The team behind 'The Man Who Knew Infinity' is reuniting to make a new film honouring Maryam Mirzakhani! Ken Ono and Manjul Bhargava (who collected his Fields Medal in the same year as Mirzakhani) are associate directors, Matt Brown writer/director! ❤️❤️❤️🎉 🎉 🎉 infinityfilmsmirzakhani.com

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

We interviewed maths prof Edward Frenkel in Faraday's old rooms on 12 Dec. The video's just out! Highlights: 29:52 Why self-knowledge is key to avoiding malevolent AI 35:06 Will AI make mathematicians redundant? 56:41 The remarkable effectiveness of physics in maths www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMTX...

youtube.com

Edward Frenkel on the meaning of mathematics and why humans matter more than ever in the age of AI.

YouTube video by London Institute for Mathematical Sciences

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Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

In one of the weirder "charity visits" I've ever done, we cracked out some maths last week! Bonus point/s if you know what's going on in these calcs* Notice that the mathmos there are technically "charity workers", a dopey phrase sometimes used by journos to cover the vast diversity of this sector…

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Seventy years after John von Neumann’s essay “Can We Survive Technology?”, the questions he posed feel more urgent than ever. On Thursday 4 December, I'm chairing an expert panel discussion at the Hungarian Embassy in London on what that essay means to us now. You're invited!

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

Folks! Amazon.com has done it again! Kindle edition of 'The Man from the Future' on sale for less than $5! That's 75% off. Want to find out what the fuss over John von Neumann is really about and what he actually did? You can now for $4.80! www.amazon.com/dp/B098TYZN6...

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

The director of the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences and I interviewed one of the most restless and original talents in science last week⏤theoretical physicist and innovator Stephen Wolfram! Watch out for the rapidfire round! www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SD9...

youtube.com

Stephen Wolfram tackles the big questions—from God and free will to whether AI will destroy us all.

YouTube video by London Institute for Mathematical Sciences

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

Stephen Wolfram is such a legend, I wasn't sure what to expect! But he was gracious and charming, as well as totally fascinating. He even enjoyed my mean rapidfire questions, which he had 90 secs each to answer! "So Stephen, Is there a God?" Will post video of the event soon! x.com/London_Inst/...

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

I’ve removed paywalls from two substack posts on recently unearthed evidence of von Neumann’s contributions to Gödel’s Incompleteness theorems. This work was published after ‘The Man from the Future’ came out, so wasn’t in the book. Links below 👇🏾

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

Many thanks to Marc Andreesen for name-checking 'The Man from the Future' in a Hermitix podcast episode, resurfaced by a16z! Listen here podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...

podcasts.apple.com

AI and Accelerationism with Marc Andreessen

Podcast Episode · a16z Podcast · 22/08/2025 · 1h 9m

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

My feature for @nature.com on the impact of the proof of the geometric Langlands conjecture is out today! David Ben-Zvi: It gives us the strongest evidence yet that something we’ve believed in for decades is true. Now we can finally ask: what does it really mean? www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

The breakthrough proof bringing mathematics closer to a grand unified theory

The Langlands programme has inspired and befuddled mathematicians for more than 50 years. A major advance has now opened up new worlds for them to explore.

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

"A portrait as contradictory and volatile as the man himself—a mind in constant motion, a life lived inside the blast radius of 20th-century science." "Definitive." My review of @nevalalee.bsky.social's excellent Luis Alvarez biography 'Collisions' for @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

The boundless energy, and ego, of Luis Alvarez

A new biography offers a definitive portrait of the intellectually restless physicist

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

“There’s proof by induction, proof by contradiction, and then proof by intimidation,” Prof. He says. “If you say something with enough authority, people just get scared. I think o4-mini has mastered proof by intimidation.” www.scientificamerican.com/article/insi...

scientificamerican.com

Inside the Secret Meeting Where Mathematicians Struggled to Outsmart AI

The world's leading mathematicians were stunned by how adept artificial intelligence is at doing their jobs

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Fantastic package of articles on the impact of AI on science and mathematics including this one, on mathematical beauty in the age of AI. What will mathematicians do once AI can come up with conjectures and find proofs? 1/ quantamagazine.org/mathematical...

quantamagazine.org

Mathematical Beauty, Truth and Proof in the Age of AI | Quanta Magazine

Mathematicians have started to prepare for a profound shift in what it means to do mathematics.

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

What’s the smallest number of pieces that an equilateral triangle can be cut into and still be rearranged into a square? It’s taken over 120 years to prove the answer… www.scientificamerican.com/article/math...

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Damon Beres @damonberes.com · 20/03/2025

NEW: LibGen contains millions of pirated books and research papers, built over nearly two decades. From court documents, we know that Meta torrented a version of it to build its AI. Today, @theatlantic.com presents an analysis of the data set by @alexreisner.bsky.social. Search through it yourself:

theatlantic.com

The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem

Meta pirated millions of books to train its AI. Search through them here.

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Stephen Wolfram has a blogpost about a half-century of innovation—as seen through the lens of engineered structures (like clocks, logic gates etc) in Conway's Game of Life! Cellular automata rock! writings.stephenwolfram.com/2025/03/what...

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Available now to stream! @bbcradio4.bsky.social looks at the thinking of scientists involved or decisively not involved in the Manhattan project-including Johnny von Neumann! Great to see von Neumann in his rightful place alongside Oppenheimer, Einstein et al. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

For #PiDay the talk at the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences is of observing 9.2 seconds of silence at 1500 hours today. The question is can any of us shut up for that long?

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

33-year old mathematician Hong Wang has proved the century-old Kakeya conjecture in in 3D, with collaborator Joshua Zahl! The problem is rooted in the old question: what's the smallest area that an infinitely thin needle can sweep out if it has to be turned to point in every possible direction?

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

📈 New post from me about Labour’s growth problem 📈 I argue that there isn’t a clear ‘theory of growth’ that Starmer and Reeves share. So there is a risk of a Frankenstein’s monster of incommensurate ideas. 🧵 benansell.substack.com/p/grasping-f...

benansell.substack.com

Grasping for Growth

Labour claim to be 'single-minded' about economic growth. But do they have a theory of it?

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Matt Weiland @mattweiland.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Anyone who relished @ananyo.bsky.social 's superb book about John von Neumann should read Alec Nevala-Lee's COLLISIONS, about Luis Alvarez. Coming in June from @wwnorton.bsky.social "Outstanding!"-Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb wwnorton.com/books/978132...

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Dan Larremore @danlarremore.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Just finished a wonderful tour of John von Neumann's life & ideas, "The Man from the Future." Can't recommend it highly enough! Author @ananyo.bsky.social Bhattacharya is a tremendous tour guide. JVN's contributions were staggering. Hard to comprehend what our world would be like without his ideas.

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

I've written up my thoughts on who did NOT invent the modern computer for my substack, 'Confections & Reputations', part of a series of posts on the true genealogy of the stored-program devices we nearly alluse today! Free for now, link ⤵️

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Kat Arney @katarney.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

Is this the year you make a career change? I've gone from lab scientist to science communicator to freelance writer to agency founder, and told the story of my journey to @ananyo.bsky.social earlier this year: sciwri.club/archives/13336

sciwri.club

Kat Arney on Science Communication and Entrepreneurship

Dr. Kat Arney is a multi-award-winning science writer, broadcaster, and public speaker. She is also the founder and Chief Creative Officer of the science communication agency First Create The Media…

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Whenever I have pressed the case that John von Neumann should be considered the father of the modern stored-program computer ie the one that nearly everyone uses and carries around in their pockets, I've been met with hurt rebukes. So let's lay out von Neumann's claim properly...

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Beautiful Roma! What luck that ‘L'uomo venuto dal futuro’ has been so well received in Italy! What fun it was to talk about John von Neumann with Paolo Giordano at the Rome book fair and be interviewed by Rai Italia!

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David Robson @davidotley.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Eventually they will be using books written by AI to train AI, and then use the books written by this new “improved” AI. The McGonagallisation of language.

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Adelphi Edizioni @adelphiedizioni.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

A "Più libri più liberi" @ananyo.bsky.social ha dialogato con Paolo Giordano raccontando la straordinaria vita di John von Neumann ne "L'uomo venuto dal futuro".

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Adelphi Edizioni @adelphiedizioni.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Domani sabato 7 dicembre, due incontri a Più libri più liberi: • "L'uomo venuto dal futuro": @ananyo.bsky.social in dialogo con Paolo Giordano, ore 12. • "Narcotopia": Patrick Winn in dialogo con Roberto Saviano, ore 14.45.

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

I'm HUGELY looking forward to chatting about Johnny von Neumann with physicist and acclaimed writer Paolo Giordano this weekend. Maybe you're one of the million or so people who read 'The Solitude of Prime Numbers'? If you're in Rome, join us! If not, the event will also be streamed plpl.it/eventi/

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Enrico @enricocaprioglio.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Highly recommend! Great Christmas gift Btw, I’m still annoyed von Nuemann wasn’t included in Nolan’s Oppenheimer. I think a scene depicting an annoyed Einstein complaining about von Neumann blasting music in the office was a huge miss

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Tavis Rudd @tavis.damnsimple.com · 28/11/2024

This was an excellent read bsky.app/profile/anan...

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Less than four weeks to Xmas Day! This year, why not give your nearest and dearest the gift of unrivaled genius? 😜 'The Man from the Future' is available in a dozen languages. AND those crazy folk at Amazon Italia have cut the price of the Kindle edition to €3.99! 😅 www.amazon.it/Luomo-venuto...

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Birkbeck, University of London, where Roger Penrose did his Nobel Prize-winning work in the '60s and London's only specialist provider of evening higher education, has closed its undergraduate maths degree... www.bbk.ac.uk/news/nobel-p... www.linkedin.com/posts/campai...

linkedin.com

Campaign for Mathematical Sciences (CaMS) on LinkedIn: Statement on maths at Birkbeck

Following significant cuts to teaching staff last year, CaMS has learned that Birkbeck, University of London no longer offers maths degree courses. President…

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Nicolás Fabelo 🇪🇺 @nicolasfabelo.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

Reflections on ‘The MANIAC’ by Benjamín Labatut 👇 picandovoyenglish.wordpress.com/2024/02/15/r... #AI #Singularity Do also read the book 'The Man from the Future' by @ananyo.bsky.social to gain a more nuanced perspective on the figure of Von Neumann

picandovoyenglish.wordpress.com

Reflections on ‘The MANIAC’ by Benjamín Labatut

The Chilean writer Benjamín Labatut is reaping well-deserved international success with his original novel The MANIAC, built around the figure of physicist John von Neumann and artificial intellige…

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

“Problems as complex as ‘P versus NP are vastly beyond where we are today in terms of even knowing how to start. But I can imagine that, maybe in around three years, we might be on course for something like that.” —David Silver, Google DeepMind www.scientificamerican.com/article/math...

scientificamerican.com

Mathematicians’ Newest Assistants Are Artificially Intelligent

AI-human collaboration could possibly achieve superhuman greatness in mathematics

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

"A successful meritocracy will value people who see their lives as a sacred mission." The second half of this piece in @theatlantic.bsky.social is super good, drawing on various lines of evidence to support the idea that selecting purely for IQ isn't meritocratic. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

theatlantic.com

How the Ivy League Broke America

The meritocracy isn’t working. We need something new.

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 09/11/2024

I’m sorry to have to say due to unforeseeable circumstances Patchen has had to pull out of promotion events next week including this one. If you’ve registered you’ll hear from LIMS next week.

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 07/11/2024

Friends! On Thursday, 14 Nov, join me and @patchenbarss.bsky.social from 6pm at LIMS to launch his excellent biography of Roger Penrose! Entry is FREE but you MUST register by emailing jc@lims.ac.uk Copies will be on sale and Xmas is nearly upon us! Deets here: lims.ac.uk/event/the-im...

lims.ac.uk

The Impossible Man

Science journalist Patchen Barss launches his critically acclaimed biography of mathematical physicist Roger Penrose at the London Institute.

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 23/10/2024

The second-most read feature in the September issue of Nautilus was a quasi-philosophical look at why physics seems to inspire interesting mathematics. I find that heartening. Physicists! Mathematicians! Everyone else! Take a gander... nautil.us/why-physics-...

nautil.us

Why Physics Is Unreasonably Good at Creating New Math

The secret sauce is the real world.

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 21/10/2024

The 'operator algebras' John von Neumann invented 100 years ago are helping probe physics beyond Einstein's general relativity! Johnny would have been pleased but, I suspect, not surprised. Truly 'The Man from the Future'! www.quantamagazine.org/if-the-unive...

quantamagazine.org

If the Universe Is a Hologram, This Long-Forgotten Math Could Decode It | Quanta Magazine

A 1930s-era breakthrough is helping physicists understand how quantum threads could weave together into a holographic space-time fabric.

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 04/09/2024

My new piece! "Why should physics—rooted in making sense of real things in the world—provide such good leads for solving some of the toughest problems in mathematics, which deals with intangible stuff, like functions and equations?" Enjoy! nautil.us/why-physics-...

nautil.us

Why Physics Is Unreasonably Good at Creating New Math

The secret sauce is the real world.

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