theSIGNAL SCIENCE
18 September 2026
"Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things."
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Science

AI Cracks a Century-Old Maths Problem. Now What?

OpenAI claims to have solved a problem that defeated mathematicians for nearly 100 years, and the world's top mathematicians are not applauding.

In early September, a press release landed like a grenade in the quiet world of pure mathematics. OpenAI announced it had solved a major mathematical problem that had resisted human effort for almost a century. For most people, this sounded like unambiguous good news. For mathematicians, it felt like something stranger — and more unsettling.

What followed was not celebration but alarm. Twenty-five winners of the Fields Medal, which is widely regarded as the Nobel Prize of mathematics, signed an open letter warning of a "severe misalignment" between the goals of AI companies and the values of their discipline. That is not a small group of dissenters. Fields Medals are awarded only every four years, and winning one places a mathematician among the rarest minds on Earth.

When a quarter of all living medallists agree on something, it is worth paying attention. Colva Roney-Dougal, a professor of pure mathematics at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, has been watching this tension unfold with a careful eye. She argues that the way AI companies announce their breakthroughs — fast, loud, and aimed at headlines — sits uncomfortably with how mathematics actually works. In her field, a result is not a result until it has been checked, questioned, and understood.

Photo: Thomas T / Unsplash
A mathematician's blackboard filled with equations, symbols, and unsolved conjectures.
Discuss
  • Why might mathematicians feel threatened by AI solving problems, even if the answer is correct?
  • What does it mean for a mathematical result to be truly 'understood', rather than just computed?
  • Should AI companies be required to have independent experts verify their claims before announcing breakthroughs?
Science

Mystery of Little Red Dots Solved?

In 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope spotted something nobody expected: thousands of tiny, furiously red smudges scattered across the early Universe. Astronomers called them Little Red Dots, and had almost no idea what they were. Now, simulations run on Japan's ATERUI III supercomputer suggest a stunning answer. Intense ultraviolet radiation from neighbouring galaxies prevented normal stars from forming, pushing gas clouds to collapse into single supermassive stars instead — and then into black holes. Those newborn black holes were wrapped in such thick gas that they gorged on material dozens of times faster than any black hole can today.…
  • Could early black holes have grown so fast that our cosmic timeline needs rewriting?
∞
Speed is not the point — depth is the point.
Colva Roney-Dougal, Professor of Pure Mathematics, University of St Andrews
Science

The glacier that became a killer flood

On 26 August, a chunk of Langtang Lirung mountain roughly the size of 28 football pitches tore loose and dropped 1,400 metres. The impact registered as an earthquake. It then sent 110 million cubic metres of ice and rock screaming downriver at over 110 mph, killing more than 1,300 people and leaving 5,000 still missing. Scientists at Imperial College London say unusually warm temperatures almost certainly weakened the glacier before it broke. This was not one extreme weather event — it was a compound crisis, built from decades of atmospheric heating driven by fossil fuel emissions far away. Events this size were once expected only once every 1,000 to 10,000 years.…
  • Who bears the greatest moral responsibility when distant emissions cause local disasters?
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theSIGNAL IN THE LAB
1VOCABULARY
misalignmentmedallists
furiouslygorgedcompound crisis
dissentersfeeding frenzy
2GRAMMAR FOCUS
Cleft sentences — It was X that / What I need is
Cleft sentences split information into two clauses to give extra emphasis. 'It was X that/who...' highlights a specific element, while 'What + clause + is/was...' emphasises a noun phrase or idea.
What · It · that · who · was · is · which
  1. alarmed mathematicians was not the result itself, but the way OpenAI announced it.
  2. It the Fields Medal winners who signed the open letter warning of a severe misalignment.
  3. It was depth, not speed, Roney-Dougal argued truly matters in mathematics.
  4. What the James Webb Space Telescope spotted in 2022 thousands of tiny red smudges scattered across the early Universe.
  5. It unusually warm temperatures that scientists believe weakened the Langtang Lirung glacier before it collapsed.
  6. What the impact of 110 million cubic metres of ice and rock produced a tremor strong enough to register as an earthquake.
3COLLOCATIONS
Match the verb on the left with the noun phrase it best collocates with on the right.
  1. sign
  2. crack
  3. run
  4. resist
  5. register
4CRITICAL THINKING
The glacier disaster and the Little Red Dots discovery both involve scientists realising they have been misreading something for a long time. What does this pattern suggest about the limits of scientific consensus, and how should institutions respond when established models are repeatedly overturned?
5CREATIVE · HEADLINES
Write a headline for the top story in each of the following styles. One line each, no explanation:
  • TABLOID NEWSPAPER
  • LUXURY MAGAZINE
  • ACTIVIST BLOG
6WRITING
A Fields Medal winner and an OpenAI engineer are asked to co-author a statement on AI's role in mathematics. Write the opening paragraph they might struggle to agree on, reflecting the genuine tensions described in the article.
7DEGREES OF EXTREMITY
Complete each ladder from mild to strong.
  • unexpected→→
  • concerned→→
  • uncommon→→
  • warm→→
  • criticism→→
  • fast→→
8SPEAKING
  1. Can speed and depth in mathematics ever coexist?
  2. Should supermassive stars change how we define a black hole?
  3. Is a once-in-10,000-year disaster now almost meaningless?
  4. What obligations do wealthy nations have after compound climate disasters?