What Will Happen to Mathematics When AI Becomes an Oracle

The new book *Big Math: The Hidden Codes That Run Our World* explores the role of mathematics in the world of algorithms, artificial intelligence, and future quantum computing. The authors examine problems involving billions of variables and parameters that humans cannot solve directly without computational tools.

Strogatz is known for his research on networks, chaos theory, DNA geometry, and the synchronous behavior of living organisms. In 1998, he co-authored a paper with Duncan Watts on the collective dynamics of small-world networks. In 2005, the mathematician studied the wobbling of London’s Millennium Bridge, which was caused by crowds moving across it.

Townsend investigates numerical analysis and deep learning. He joined Cornell as a junior colleague of Strogatz, who became his mentor. Lunch meetings led to the idea of a joint book: initially, the authors wanted to write about the 20 key algorithms of the 20th century but later focused on large-scale matrix computations and their significance for the modern world.

"There are many books about pure mathematics as if computers didn’t exist," Strogatz said. According to him, the shift of mathematical operations from human thought to external tools did not begin with computers: the abacus was used for arithmetic, and the ancient Chinese *fangcheng* board was used for solving systems of linear equations.