Strogatz, Townsend Publish Big Math on AI’s Impact as 2,000-Year Tool Shift Accelerates
Updated
Updated · Ars Technica · Nov 10
Strogatz, Townsend Publish Big Math on AI’s Impact as 2,000-Year Tool Shift Accelerates
3 articles · Updated · Ars Technica · Nov 10
Summary
Steven Strogatz and Alex Townsend have co-authored Big Math, a new book arguing that AI, large language models and eventually quantum computing are pushing mathematics beyond unaided human scale.
Billions of variables and parameters now define many important problems, they say, making computation central to modern math rather than a mere aid to work done in the head.
Townsend’s course on the top 20 algorithms of the 20th century helped spark the project, which evolved from a popular-science idea about algorithms into a broader book on large matrix calculations and applied mathematics.
Strogatz frames that shift as part of a much longer history, comparing today’s computer-driven math to earlier external tools such as the abacus and the 2,000-year-old fangcheng board for solving linear equations.