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Simon Blackburn

@simonrblackburn.bsky.social
550 followers 543 following 144 posts

Combinatorics, Algebra, Cryptography. Professor of Pure Mathematics at Royal Holloway University of London. Maths enthusiast. Cat enthusiast. Woking Rail Enthusiast.

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Reposted by Simon Blackburn
Astronomy 🔭 @astronomy.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Margaret Hamilton, who led the team that wrote the code that put humans on the moon, has died at 90 🕊️
A black and white photograph of Margaret Hamilton standing next to a tall stack of printed computer code, which reaches nearly to her height.President Barack Obama places a gold star medal with a blue ribbon around the neck of Margaret Hamilton, who smiles while wearing glasses and a dark speckled top.
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Train Songs Central @trainsongscentral.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
'But I don't need no friends As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset I am in paradise' - 'Waterloo Sunset' by The Kinks (1967) - 📷 Waterloo station, London, 1964, taken by David Christie
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Cats with Jobs ⚒️ @catworkers.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
📚 A book store cat spotted by AmsInTheNorth!
A white and grey cat resting in a book store
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Benjamin @benjaminschneider.ch · 01/10/2026
just came across this incredible picture of Terry Pratchett
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Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
A thread about a great cat, and the post-retirement creative evolution of a great artist, in 20 images...
My late cat The Bear in a box marked Hotel California, realising he can check out but he can never leave.
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National Trust @nationaltrust.org.uk · 28/09/2026
Today marks three years since the iconic Sycamore Gap tree was illegally felled. We're pleased to bring you new images which reveal how the stump is growing, a sure sign that the tree is in recovery.
A close-up of sycamore shootsThe stump is hidden by a thick ring of green shootsThick, green shoots surround the stumpShowing tall shoots, growing above the stump
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Tim Carmody @tcarmody.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This is the funniest thing I've seen today, possibly ever
A tweet by SarahStarberry that says "oh god read the vertical axis" on top of a chart measuring AI models' release dates and model numbers rather than any real capabilities
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Simon Blackburn @simonrblackburn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
But I'm sure he's right that AI will be central to maths in the future. It's a fascinating time to be in the field, and equally fascinating to hear Kevin's views on this. Interesting times!
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Simon Blackburn @simonrblackburn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I'm not sure I agree with everything. In particular, I think calling for OpenAI to release all its mathematical results as a data dump underestimates the negative effects. (I strongly agree with AGAMI that OpenAI should integrate these results into the community, as any mathematician would.)
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Simon Blackburn @simonrblackburn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
An interesting blog entry by Kevin Buzzard tinyurl.com/mus84yum, with a discussion of various mathematicians' approaches to AI in the field and a contention of the centrality of AI to the future of the field.
tinyurl.com
To grieve, or not to grieve?
Recent events in the field of AI for mathematics have shown us beyond all reasonable doubt that the field is currently undergoing a rapid transformation, unlike anything that we have ever seen befo…
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Cats with Jobs ⚒️ @catworkers.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
📸 Nevada Northern Railway Museum
Orange long-haired cat sleeping sprawled on an open toolbox amid tools in a train maintenance shop, with a red, white, and blue locomotive numbered 250 visible in the background.
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Timothy Gowers @wtgowers.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The advisory group on mathematics and artificial intelligence, of which I am a member, has just published a set of recommendations concerning the responsible release of mathematical results generated by AI companies using internal models. 1/3 agmai.org/general-sep29/
agmai.org
general-sep29
Responsible Release of AI-Generated Mathematics September 29, 2026 Back to main page Download PDF At present, some frontier AI labs are testing advanced mathematical problems on proprietary models …
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Cats with Jobs ⚒️ @catworkers.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
So many bookstore cats... 📚 📹 Cupboard Maker Books
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John C. Baez @johncarlosbaez.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The number of combinatorics papers submitted to the arXiv is growing at a crazy rate! It may be mathematicians rushing to use AI to knock off lots of problems. This will cause big problems for journals, unless they raise their standards. proofsandprompts.com/2026/09/25/d...
A graph of combinatorics papers submitted to the arXiv per month, going from about 180 in 2010 to 1100 in August 2026.   The big speedup started around March 2026.  The 2025 average was about 550 / month.
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Train Songs Central @trainsongscentral.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
'I've been to ancient worlds, I've scoured the whole universe And caught the first train home, to be at her side' - 'English Rose' by The Jam (1978) - 📷 Woking, England, 1964, taken by David Christie
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RedPen/BlackPen @redpenblackpen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
That's a nice paper you got there. It'd be a shame if anything .... happened to it
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John Lyon @johnlyon.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The first rule of Overexplaining Club is you do not talk about Overexplaining Club because this is a secret club and we want it to stay a secret, but if you talk about it then people will know it exists, thus ruining the secrecy.
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Astronomy 🔭 @astronomy.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Pikachu has been to space ⚡ ESA just revealed the Pokémon secretly spent 67 days aboard the ISS
A Pikachu plush toy wearing a white astronaut suit floats inside the International Space Station. Through the circular Cupola windows, the blue Earth and white clouds are visible against the blackness of space.
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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
happy #caturday
tortie peeking out from box with warning on it that says "warning: if left empty and unattended this box will contain a cat
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Simon Blackburn @simonrblackburn.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Here is a more direct link tinyurl.com/awrt5kvx in case this is useful.
tinyurl.com
SAIR’s Open Math Model initiative
Last year I co-founded the Foundation for Science and AI Research (SAIR) with some private donors to create a non-profit organization that could support responsible uses of AI in mathematics and th…
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Simon Blackburn @simonrblackburn.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Governance would also be open. I don't currently use AI in my research at all. But I do want to use these tools, and I am *much* more comfortable using the proposed SAIR system rather than current alternatives which do not seem to have the maths community's interest at heart.
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Simon Blackburn @simonrblackburn.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Terry Tao announces the SAIR initiative: to construct an Open Math Model. terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/09/ The proposal is for a model that is useful for everyday maths research with open development and data owned by the mathematical community (used for training only with explicit consent).
terrytao.wordpress.com
The AKS primality test
The Agrawal-Kayal-Saxena (AKS) primality test, discovered in 2002, is the first provably deterministic algorithm to determine the primality of a given number with a run time which is guaranteed to …
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Simon Blackburn @simonrblackburn.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Bounded means bounded by a function of k and c. And there are connections to the active area of groups on graphs, which is a nice bonus!
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Simon Blackburn @simonrblackburn.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
A subset X of a finite group is k-power-avoiding if for all group elements x, the subset X does not contain both x and x^k. The paper contains a structural result on groups containing a k-power-avoiding set of size |G|-c: the subgroup generated by kth powers is bounded in order.
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Simon Blackburn @simonrblackburn.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Simon R. Blackburn, Sarah B. Hart and Daniel McVeagh, `Finite groups with large power-avoiding subsets’ appeared on arXiv yesterday: arxiv.org/abs/2609.18513. A very enjoyable project, coming from Dan's PhD (supervised by Sarah).
arxiv.org
Finite groups with large power-avoiding subsets
A subset $X$ of a finite group $G$ is $k$-power-avoiding if for all $g\in G$ we have that $\{g,g^k\}\not\subseteq X$. The paper shows that if $G$ contains a $k$-power-avoiding subset $X$ with $|X|\geq...
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mr. TIM @timkellogg.me · 17/09/2026
OpenAI is close to solving the Hodge Conjecture, another millennium prize problem I assume they’ve already solved it, just trying to figure out how to break the news nicely given that historically these announcements haven’t resulted in positive press www.theinformation.com/newsletters/...
theinformation.com
OpenAI Is Close To Solving Another Millennium Prize Math Problem
Remember when OpenAI landed in hot water earlier this month after mathematicians accused the company of trying to steal their thunder for solving an ultra-difficult math problem? (I know it feels like...
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Danny Fearns @dannyfearns.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I don't follow Formula One, but good on them for using subtitles for the hard of hearing… 
F1 track with numerous Zoom signs on the advertising billboards
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Simon Blackburn @simonrblackburn.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Pyrrhocoris apterus (Firebug)?
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 14/09/2026
OH Scale xkcd.com/3297/
Comic. [Next to a two-story house and some trees is a huge rail (several times the height of the house) with an incomplete huge wheel on top surrounded by scaffolding.] [caption] Due to a typo in the plans, I’ve been building an 87:1 model train set in my yard.
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Matt Henderson @matthen.com · 13/09/2026
Approximating the Lorenz attractor with a chaotic leaky water wheel. The orange dot is the centre of mass of the water. It traces (a projection of) the familiar attractor as the wheel spins seemingly randomly left and right.
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Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Very forceful statement by Terry Tao about AI and math. terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/09/11/a... Note, he is not claiming the models aren't real and powerful. He's talking about how that power should be used. This, I believe, is what all AI discussions should center.
terrytao.wordpress.com
A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics
I am proud to be among the list of 25 initial signatories — all Fields Medallists — to the declaration below, which grew out of discussions between ourselves over the last week. We have…
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MꙬse Allain @mooseallain.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
A man in a face covering talks to another man who is looking disappointedly at a small box he is holding. Man 1 “What's that?”. Man 2 “Baklava. I misread the WhatsApp”
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Brian Bilston @brianbilston.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Today’s poem is called ‘In the Departure Lounge’.
In the Departure Lounge
 
in the departure lounge,
she drew him near,
then softly whispered in his ear,
not words of parting’s sweet, sweet sorrow,
but don’t forget the bins tomorrow



Brian Bilston
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LRB Bookshop @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk · 09/09/2026
was standing behind charlie while he served a customer and he turned down a proffered £20 note because the king was winking on it. we looked it up afterwards and it turns out this was a big mistake
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Elle Cordova @ellecordova.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I am the very model of a modern day typographer A font take on the tune “Modern Major General” by Gilbert & Sullivan #typography #fonts #graphicdesign
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Simon Blackburn @simonrblackburn.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Two unusual sights in Egham this lunchtime: a GWR locomotive, and rain!
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Micah Warren @micah541.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
cloak and dagger navier stokes cims.nyu.edu/~tristanb/st...
cims.nyu.edu
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John C. Baez @johncarlosbaez.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
For the human story, read Tristan Buckmaster's statement. He and Levent Alpöge (the latter at Anthropic) felt pressured to quickly release an unpolished proof of finite-time blowup for the Euler equations after hearing that a team at OpenAI was doing similar work. Stressful stuff:
Part of a statement by Tristan Buckmaster available here: https://cims.nyu.edu/~tristanb/statement.pdf

"I asked when the first prompt had been sent by them. This question was
not answered directly by OpenAI for some time. Eventually it was agreed that it had been sent in the past few days, after information about our work had reached OpenAI.

I asked whether the model had been trained on, or had access to, our sessions in Codex, into which we had been putting all our drafts for the whole of this project. I was told the model did not look up user data. I asked again, about training, and I did not get an answer."
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John C. Baez @johncarlosbaez.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Wow! A lot of progress toward solving one of the Millenium Prize problems - proving blowup for Navier-Stokes. It involves AI, and the folks at OpenAI are battling the folks at Anthropic to get to the finish line first. For the math, read these posts by Terence Tao:
mathstodon.xyz
Terence Tao (@tao@mathstodon.xyz)
A remarkable achievement: Alpöge and Buckmaster have managed to push one of the major promising approaches towards constructing blowup solutions to fluid equations --- as developed by Cordoba and Mart...
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 07/09/2026
‘It’s the Bayeux tapestry of TV!’ After six decades, the seminal series bows out with 70 Up
theguardian.com
‘It’s the Bayeux tapestry of TV!’ After six decades, the seminal series bows out with 70 Up
The ‘hugely important artefact’ that’s followed 14 children since they were seven is set to air its final instalment. The now-septuagenarians and director Asif Kapadia talk about breaking new ground for 63 years – and changing TV forever
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NETWORK SOUTHEAST LATCHMERE 🟥🟦⬜️ @nse-latchmere.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
What a way to celebrate 40 years of Network Southeast!! Well done to all involved at the Bluebell Railways NSE diesel gala! Here is a highlight video. #NSE40
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𝕯𝖆𝖓🍂🎃🕸️ @arepublic86.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Charlotte Wainwright restoring and saving old/ancient books. www.wainwrightbookbinding.com
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Dr Kathleen Neal @kbneal.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
I feel like Bluesky is the place where people will appreciate how envious I still am of my sister, around 35 years after she achieved her (and my) top bucket list item of being locked in the bookshop when it closed, and having the place to entirely to herself.
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Stuart Jones @owenthesignal.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekIforIntegers NetworkSoutheast! ///
Class 03 shunter 03179 in NSE colours of (from solebar) grey white red white blue with the distinctive light grey/red/blue diagonal flash logo
NSE Class 50 in platform
1 behind
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Chris Addison @mrchrisaddison.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Somewhere in England, a tired man turns off Channel 4 news and wearily puts on a bin.
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Anne Robbins @hincmariana.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
An ancient listing, flagged in an old cutting from the Guardian, for a job at Southeast Missouri State University, to teach philosophy and religious studies. Startlingly frank.
An old newspaper clipping, apparently from the Guardian:

ENCLOSED is an announcement of a tenure-track position in philosophy at the rank of assistant professor. We hope to fill this position rapidly... We are more interested in looking at candidates with real teaching experience than in newly minted PhD's, who might have unrealistic expectations about the possibilities for academic growth at an institution such as ours. Southeast Missouri State University is a regional university which serves students in the southeast portion of the state including St Louis.
Our students tend to be poorly prepared for college level work, intellectually passive, interested primarily in partying, and culturally provincial in the extreme. We offer a major in philosophy, but do not usually have more than two students officially declared as majors at any given time... We also offer a rellgious studies minor; most of the students who declare this minor are shocked to learn that Moses might not have written the Pentateuch and regard higher criticism as secular humanist propaganda.
The academic environment at
SEMO is distinctly non-intellectual - somewhat like a Norman Rockwell painting— and the candidate cannot expect to attract students by offering courses that assume innate curiosity about ideas and books, or intellectual playful-ness, or independence of moral and political thought.
Job advertisement written by the chairman of the Department of Philosophy at the Southeast Missouri State University
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ianVisits @ianvisits.co.uk · 02/09/2026
ianvisits.co.uk
London’s Public Art: Emanuel Hollow’s railway girders
A new sculpture has appeared next to Barnes railway bridge, and appropriately for its location, it’s made from pieces of the old railway bridge itself.
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Joe Brown @joebrownlondon.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
#OnThisDay 186 years ago the GWR opened between Bath Spa and Bristol Temple Meads; it would be a further 10 months before the line was completed through Box Tunnel connecting Bristol to London. BR Blue abounds at Bristol Temple Meads in May 1980: Geoff7918 buff.ly/YeAmeOE
Telephoto image from a high vantage point looking down on the southern end of Bristol Temple Meads station. Class 50s, Class 37s, a Class 46, an InterCity 125, Class 101 and 116 DMUs, and a variety of parcels, coaching and flat-bed (possibly Motorail?) rolling stock are visible.
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St. Simeon the Holy Fool @simeonthefool.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Cleopatra lived closer to the moon landing than to the present day
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Gail Myerscough @gailmyerscough.co.uk · 28/08/2026
Pete’s Prize Draw Every order placed this Bank Holiday weekend goes into a draw. One order wins £50 to spend in my shop. Pete will pick the winner. www.gailmyerscough.co.uk
Pete the cat with a poster explaining his prize draw.
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