AI cracks the maths the professors couldn't — the departments should be nervous, not the discipline

Spectator Australia · Ananyo Bhattacharya · Monday 4 May 2026

AI cracks the maths the professors couldn't — the departments should be nervous, not the discipline

A 23-year-old amateur using AI solves a problem that beat trained mathematicians. The breakthrough is real; the institutional panic dressed up as celebration is the actual story.

A 23-year-old with a chatbot cracks a problem the professors couldn't, and the Spectator calls it a revolution. Every generation discovers the wheel was round all along — the kid with the prompt is this decade's bloke in the shed who built a better mousetrap. The mathematicians will be fine. The mathematics departments, less so.

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