ananyo.bsky.social

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

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...

Forget formalism: mathematics was built on infighting and emotional turmoil A fast-paced book captures how theory and formal proof intertwined with the personal lives of prominent mathematicians.

Intriguing review by @ananyo.bsky.social of a recent history of maths www.nature.com/articles/d41...

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

YouTube video by London Institute for Mathematical Sciences Edward Frenkel on the meaning of mathematics and why humans matter more than ever in the age of AI.

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...

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…

Can We Survive Technology? A panel discussion revisiting John von Neumann’s legacy in the age of AI, quantum computing and global challenges and networking reception.

Four academics from different fields will explore how his ideas continue to shape contemporary thinking across physics, AI, economics, and sustainability. Followed by a reception with Hungarian delicacies and wine. It's free! Details and sign up here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/can-we-sur...

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!

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...

YouTube video by London Institute for Mathematical Sciences Stephen Wolfram tackles the big questions—from God and free will to whether AI will destroy us all.

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...

A video of the whole event is now on YouTube! youtube.com/watch?v=8SD9...

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/...

...peculiarity of Bengali culture, I highly highly recommend Jhumpa Lahiri's 'The Namesake'. (In fact all of her books but this one relates to the whole familial nickname thing)

...it's still rare that I come across another Ananyo IRL. I've encountered some online and am LinkedIn buddies with another Ananyo Bhattacharya who keeps being asked whether he wrote The Man from the Future (he's got a PhD from MIT). My family call me by my nickname--'dahk nam'. On that...

LOL. I tell people to pronounce it ON-ON-OH. This is not how it is pronounced in West Bengal. However, since it's mostly non-Indians that say my name, it seemed almost like an affectation demanding it be pronounced in the Bengali manner (specially when growing up in the North)....

Of course! Let me know when you want to drop by!

The Economist is hiring a science and technology correspondent We’re looking for a writer to join us in London for 12 months

www.economist.com/science-and-... come work with me

Thanks Caroline! I’m not looking for another job (certainly not a temporary position). There’s younger hungrier writers out there. Alex! Come into the London institute for mathematical sciences with Alok and tim c one Friday! Drinks from 5pm every week.

Not quite everything. Just everything important 😜

Was Gödel's second incompleteness theorem really von Neumann's? Part I
ananyo.substack.com/p/was-godels-s…
Was Gödel's second incompleteness theorem really von Neumann's? Part II
ananyo.substack.com/p/was-godels-s���

Despite many arguing we shouldn’t care who exactly did what in science, people seem to care very much. Arguably science wouldn’t progress in its current state unless a scientist could establish priority for a discovery.

Second, there’s strong evidence that von Neumann had a proof of the second incompleteness theorem, which Gödel never proved. Moreover when von Neumann informed Gödel of this, Godel misled von Neumann to prevent him scooping him.

The research reveals, first, that von Neumann suggested to Gödel that he transform his first incompleteness theorem from a statement in logic to one in number theory—hugely amping up its significance.

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 👇🏾

Oppie and Johnny, best frenemies of the Atomic Age. Part I A fraught relationship helped spawn nuclear bombs and modern computers

The 1943 paper which Andreessen correctly states describes the core tech underlying modern AI is McCulloch and Pitts's “A Logical Calculus of the ideas Imminent in Nervous Activity”, which I talk about in TMFTF.
McCulloch and Pitts paper
historyofinformation.com/detail.php?i...

Oppie and Johnny, best frenemies of the Atomic Age. Part I A fraught relationship helped spawn nuclear bombs and modern computers

Eavesdropping on von Neumann, Turing and Oppenheimer would be great fun though VN and Oppie “stalked each other like alley cats” at Princeton according to one contemporary.
VN WAS more interesting than Oppie. Obviously.
See also
ananyo.substack.com/p/oppie-and-...

AI and Accelerationism with Marc Andreessen Podcast Episode · a16z Podcast · 22/08/2025 · 1h 9m

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...

Thank you!

Explanatory maths/theoretical physics journalism is hard, important and underfunded. Wish the UK had a @simonsfoundation.org that backed proper, in-depth maths/theory communication with cold, hard cash.

9. Finally, to appreciate just how good all this reporting is, compare and contrast to the utterly useless wiki article on the geometric Langlands.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometr...

8. An interview with Andrew Wiles on his proof of Fermat's last theorem by Plus maths. "What it began was it opened a little door to the Langland's programme, and a new way of trying to get at results in the Langland's programme." plus.maths.org/content/andr...