The fall of the theorem economy How AI could destroy mathematics and barely touch it

open.substack.com/pub/davidbes...

it is attractive to idiots.

1. It's not particularly surprising or impressive.

2. It's ugly, building basic objects from a baroque one.

3. It's useless.

4. It's pointless, since you still need to define exp and log, which you can't without all the basic objects underneath.

Journée ImpAct 2026 - David Bessis YouTube video by Institut DataIA Paris-Saclay

"Mathematics in the age of AI"—a one-hour conversation I had earlier this year, for an audience of machine-learning graduate students at Université Paris-Saclay. [In French]
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dTb...

Twins reared apart do not exist The shaky science of genetic determinism

Bessis continues his run of being one of the most interesting and engaging popular intellectuals these days.

open.substack.com/pub/davidbes...

Thank you @davebrady72.bsky.social !

Letter to a PhD student What's the point of intellectual work, if AGI is around the corner?

Quel est l'intérêt de se lancer dans une carrière scientifique, si l'IA générale arrive ?

Sur son blog, @davidbessis.bsky.social répond à cette difficile question posée par un doctorant. Vous ne lirez probablement rien de plus intéressant cette semaine.

davidbessis.substack.com/p/letter-to-...

Letter to a PhD student What's the point of intellectual work, if AGI is around the corner?

open.substack.com/pub/davidbes...

Attention is all we have A conjectural theory of cognitive inequality

open.substack.com/pub/davidbes...

Thinking fast, slow, and super slow How mathematicians train their intuition

Thanks to @cedricchin.bsky.social for arranging a group call with @davidbessis.bsky.social definitely going to be reading his book about how maths is really done, see davidbessis.substack.com/p/thinking-f... for a taste

Il est arrivé…

« Le Rectangle de Lascaux »rencontre le triangle des Éditions Odile Jacob !

Sortie en librairie mercredi 28 janvier.

@editionsodilejacob.bsky.social @cnrs.fr @inserm.fr @college-de-france.fr @cedricvillani.bsky.social @davidbessis.bsky.social

This reminds me of John Nash's letter where he declined an offer for a prestigious chair at the University of Chicago because he was expecting to become Emperor of Antarctica.

I recently read "Mathematica" by David Bessis, and I think it's a fantastic book! Before I recommend it to everyone, I would love to hear from people who do mathematics, or at least prove a theorem now and then. Do you agree with Bessis' description of what mathematics is and what mathematicians do?

Thanks. I could indeed have noted that, but I think it is more effective to debunk what this person is claiming, rather that debunking him as a person. Especially with a pop sci account that blends 10% hardcore nonsense with 90% legit science news (this vicious strategy has served him well so far.)

Cover of Bessis' Mathematica

In case you are still trying to find a present for yourself or a loved one who would like to hear more about what we mathematicians do and how so.... I can only recommend Bessis' book Mathematica. What a wonderful read. I could highlight every other sentence.
#math #maths #mathsky

Thinking fast, slow, and super slow How mathematicians train their intuition

davidbessis.substack.com/p/thinking-f...

Twins reared apart do not exist The shaky science of genetic determinism

Taken at face value, "twins reared apart" studies seem to prove the IQ is almost entirely genetic. But when you look at the actual science, you realize that it is entirely inconclusive — the approach just doen't work!
davidbessis.substack.com/p/twins-rear...

Mathematical Thinking Isn’t What You Think It Is | Quanta Magazine The mathematician David Bessis claims that everyone is capable of, and can benefit greatly from, mathematical thinking.

The mathematician David Bessis believes that mathematical skill is not innate, but learned. “Genius is not an essence. It’s a state. It’s a state that you build by doing a certain job.”

His book "Mathematica" is a real eye-opener. David Bessis describes accurately and vividly the way we perceive and manipulate mathematical objects. Colleagues who read it also felt he put into words what they had not been able to formulate about the mathematical process. Highly recommended.

The curious case of broken theorems Mathematics shouldn't survive logical errors—yet it does

BTW, do subscribe to my Substack, if you haven't yet done so! The latest post is about why mathematics survives the many errors in the literature—if it really was founded on pure logic, math would crumble to dust.
davidbessis.substack.com/p/the-curiou...

Just received this legitimate reader request: could I publish a French Substack, alongside the original English? (The same could be asked about my posts here.) I could, but it wouldn't be worth the effort. I'm writing for a global audience whose only lingua franca is English.

😅

Ça ne devait pas être mon époque, il n'y avait pas vraiment de démonstration, j'essayais d'expliquer ce que c'était qu'un énoncé mathématique, ce qu'était une démonstration, comment tout ça marchait, et d'expliquer quelques notions *avec les mains*.

Yes!

The curious case of broken theorems Mathematics shouldn't survive logical errors—yet it does

davidbessis.substack.com/p/the-curiou...

No, thanks for the ref.

Another notable omission is Poincaré. I'm more embarrassed about this one, as I hadn't done my homework and should have read him more early in the writing process — but reading him at the end of the process provided validation and reassurance.

As for Thom, he clearly influenced me (as I read a lot about catastrophe theory in my early 20s) but not through his philosophical writings and not in a way I can easily convey. Again, I wanted to write an accessible book, not a reference-complete one.

Thanks! Re Holton and Bachelard: I never the read the former, and only read the latter during the book writing process (as a friend suggested I should) and decided not include him, because it wouldn't have added incremental clarity and I didn't want to write an "erudite" book.

Russ Roberts’ “Econ Talk” is one of the most interesting podcasts.

This episode with @davidbessis.bsky.social is truly fascinating.

It got me thinking we should train students to think of research as “a dialogue between intuition and evidence.”

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...