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ananyo.bsky.social

@ananyo.bsky.social

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Chief science writer at the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences. 'The Man from the Future', on the unparalleled influence of John von Neumann, available everywhere. Subscribe to my substack, Confections & Refutations https://ananyo.substack.com

ananyo.substack.com

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Jan 4

Whenever I have pressed the case that John von Neumann should be considered the father of the modern stored-program computer ie the one that nearly everyone uses and carries around in their pockets, I've been met with hurt rebukes. So let's lay out von Neumann's claim properly...

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 7d

...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)

ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 7d

...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...

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · 7d

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)....

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Sep 5

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

Reposted by ananyo.bsky.social

Alex Hern @hern.bsky.social · Sep 3

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

www.economist.com

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Sep 5

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.

ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Aug 31

Not quite everything. Just everything important 😜

ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Aug 31

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��

https://ananyo.substack.com/p/was-godels-s…

ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Aug 31

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.

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Aug 31

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.

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Aug 31

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.

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Aug 31

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 👇🏾

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Aug 25

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

ananyo.substack.com

ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Aug 25

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-...

Oppie and Johnny, best frenemies of the Atomic Age. Part I

A fraught relationship helped spawn nuclear bombs and modern computers

ananyo.substack.com

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Aug 25

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

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ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Jul 16

Thank you!

ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Jul 16

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.

ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Jul 16

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...

Geometric Langlands correspondence - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Jul 16

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...

Andrew Wiles: what does it feel like to do maths?

We were very excited to meet Andrew Wiles this summer! In this interview and videos he tells us what it was like to prove Fermat's Last Theorem, and what it feels like to do maths.

plus.maths.org

ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Jul 16

7. And @kevinhartnett.bsky.social again on the Fargues and Scholze effort to geometrize the local arithmetic Langlands
quantamagazine.org/with-a-new-s...

New Shape Opens ‘Wormhole’ Between Numbers and Geometry | Quanta Magazine

Laurent Fargues and Peter Scholze have found a new, more powerful way of connecting number theory and geometry as part of the sweeping Langlands program.

quantamagazine.org

ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Jul 16

5. Again in 2007! Now Peter Woit gets into it
math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpr...
6. @kevinhartnett.bsky.social on the work of Ben-Zvi, Venkatesh and Sakellaridis that I mention in the piece.
quantamagazine.org/echoes-of-el...

Echoes of Electromagnetism Found in Number Theory | Quanta Magazine

A new magnum opus posits the existence of a hidden mathematical link akin to the connection between electricity and magnetism.

quantamagazine.org

ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Jul 16

4. A blog post from 2004(!) by Peter Woit (Not Even Wrong)! "My colleague ... explained to me today over lunch what a “Hecke eigensheaf” is supposed to be, but there’s a whole web of relations ... that neither of us understands very well." math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpr...

Langlands Program and Physics

One of my minor hobbies over the years has been trying to understand something about the Langlands conjectures in number theory, partly because some of the mathematics that shows up there looks lik…

math.columbia.edu

ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Jul 16

2. @kevinhartnett.bsky.social on Andre Weil's 'Rosetta stone', which presaged the Langlands programme quantamagazine.org/a-rosetta-st...
3. The IAS has the 17-page letter from Langlands to Weil publications.ias.edu/rpl/paper/43

A Rosetta Stone for Mathematics | Quanta Magazine

In 1940 André Weil wrote a letter to his sister, Simone, outlining his vision for translating between three distinct areas of mathematics. Eighty years later, it still animates many of the most exciti...

quantamagazine.org

ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Jul 16

So some further reading for the curious (papers are linked in the feature for afficiandos), with a heavy bias towards articles from the excellent @quantamagazine.bsky.social
1. Super news article by @ericaklarreich.bsky.social on the proof last year
quantamagazine.org/monumental-p...

Monumental Proof Settles Geometric Langlands Conjecture | Quanta Magazine

In work that has been 30 years in the making, mathematicians have proved a major part of a profound mathematical vision called the Langlands program.

quantamagazine.org

ananyo.bsky.social @ananyo.bsky.social · Jul 16

The scope of my article was to look at the buzz around the proof and what it means for science. That left precious little room for anything but a superficial description of the proof itself.

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