A lot of excitement on here about the article in Science summarising the discoveries of @alistairsponsel.bsky.social and Brian Sutton, just published in the Journal of the History of Biology. Some people have asked, so here is what I think they show, and what are the implications:

Photograph 49 is the Key to Understanding the History of Rosalind Franklin’s DNA Photograph 51 - Journal of the History of Biology

This essay, co-authored by a historian of science and an X-ray crystallographer, sheds new light on Rosalind Franklin’s Photograph 51. We refute the infamous claim that, unlike James Watson, Franklin ...

link.springer.com

Hey @matthewcobb.bsky.social What did you make of this in Science by Tim Appenzeller? From what I recall, in your book you argue that 51 didn't play a role in Watson and Crick's thinking...? www.science.org/content/arti...

How did Rosalind Franklin miss the helix in her iconic DNA image? She didn’t

New analysis refutes James Watson’s claim he was first to recognize significance of famed photograph 51

science.org

🙂

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

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

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...

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

science.org

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

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.

nature.com

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

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...

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

youtube.com

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…

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...

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...

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

youtube.com

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

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

youtube.com

ananyo.bsky.social@ananyo.bsky.social · 12mo ago

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/...

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/...

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

The Economist is hiring a science and technology correspondent

We’re looking for a writer to join us in London for 12 months

economist.com

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 👇🏾

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...

AI and Accelerationism with Marc Andreessen

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

podcasts.apple.com

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...

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.

nature.com

"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/...

The boundless energy, and ego, of Luis Alvarez

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

science.org

“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...

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

scientificamerican.com

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...

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.

quantamagazine.org

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...

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:

The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem

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

theatlantic.com

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...

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...

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?

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?

📈 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...

Grasping for Growth

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

benansell.substack.com

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...

Dan Larremore@danlarremore.bsky.social · 2y ago

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.