Strogatz's New Book 'Big Math' Explores 'Big Math' in the AI Era
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On November 11, 2026, Ars Technica reported that applied mathematician Steven Strogatz has co-authored a new book, 'Big Math: The Hidden Codes That Run Our World,' with his Cornell colleague Alex Townsend. The book explores the concept of 'Big Math'—extremely large-scale mathematical problems beyond human cognitive capacity that contain billions of variable parameters. The report notes that the largest large language models have now reached the scale of trillions of parameters. Strogatz uses this to discuss what happens to mathematics when AI becomes an 'oracle'—that is, how human mathematics will cope when facing mathematical structures far beyond human comprehension. This is the first report on the event, with no further developments yet.
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- Ars Technica · AIWhat happens to mathematics when AI becomes an oracle?
Applied mathematician Steven Strogatz has co-authored a new book, Big Math: The Hidden Codes That Run Our World, with his Cornell colleague Alex Townsend. It explores "big math" — ultra-large-scale mathematical problems beyond human cognitive capacity that contain billions of variable parameters; the largest LLMs have already reached trillions of parameters.
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