Top all-time · #2998
David Bessis
Personal blog · davidbessis.substack.commathsciencephilosophy
David Bessis's personal blog at davidbessis.substack.com covers math, science and philosophy. Since 2024, 26 different Hacker News readers have linked it 36 times, most often “The Fall of the Theorem Economy”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-04-21, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (11) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link David Bessis's essays on mathematics, proof and AI, especially 'The fall of the theorem economy', which commenters cite as the best recent thinking on how AI changes mathematical prestige and practice.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 11 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
I write about mathematics and human cognition.
Most-linked posts?
- The Fall of the Theorem Economy10 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2026-04-22
- Attention is all we have: A conjectural theory of cognitive inequality7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2026-02-04
- The real mathematics is the one that we dream – David Bessis3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-03-17
- Twins reared apart do not exist2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-12-08
- The curious case of broken theorems2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-11-15
- Thinking fast, slow, and super slow2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-12-24
What Hacker News says?
Doing the last step of solving an open problem is the yard stick. But not for much longer: https://davidbessis.substack.com/p/the-fall-of-the-theorem-e...
Comment linking /p/the-fall-of-the-theorem-economy
on “A misalignment of AI in mathematics”Submitted Twins reared apart do not exist as a story · 61 points
HN discussionDear cutemonster, I know this reply may not suffice to convince you, but unfortunately I won't be able to argue forever. Did you ever consider the possibility that you might be the one living in a bubble? FYI, the concept of innate talent predated IQ tests and twin studies by many millenia. Two of the authors I'm citing in my book (Descartes and Grothendieck) believed that innate talent existed and they both declare…
Comment linking /
on “Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking”Submitted We've been wrong about math for 2300 years as a story · 38 points
HN discussion> The difference in reactions by the maths community should probably be spit up into those who have read and understood On Proof and Progress and actually thought deeply about why they do mathematics, and those who haven't. I think David Bessis (in an essay from April) has the best thoughts on this since Thurston: https://davidbessis.substack.com/p/the-fall-of-the-theorem-e... Also discussed here: https://news.ycomb…
Comment linking /p/the-fall-of-the-theorem-economy
on ““Math 2.0” will need to value mathematical progress more holistically”Submitted Attention is all we have: A conjectural theory of cognitive inequality as a story · 24 points
HN discussionThere is a long and interesting recent essay on that topic by a mathematician: https://davidbessis.substack.com/p/the-fall-of-the-theorem-e...
Comment linking /p/the-fall-of-the-theorem-economy
on “An OpenAI model has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry”Submitted The Fall of the Theorem Economy as a story · 8 points
HN discussionhttps://davidbessis.substack.com/p/the-fall-of-the-theorem-e... This blog post talks in depth about what you're talking about. It may interest you. It even talks about the future where math proofs are just Lean programs, and why that won't necessarily be a good thing. It's worth a read, even if it's long AF.
Comment linking /p/the-fall-of-the-theorem-economy
on “Discovering Cryptographic Weaknesses with Claude”Submitted The curious case of broken theorems as a story · 6 points
HN discussionI don't know about "falsified results", that's a pretty strong phrasing, but here's an interesting story about research Lasker presented on Twitter, by David Bessis: https://davidbessis.substack.com/p/twins-reared-apart-do-not...
Comment linking /p/twins-reared-apart-do-not-exist
on “Autism hasn't increased”Submitted Attention is all we have as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI guess then the likely outcome is that nobody will get any more prestige from presenting new proofs. The fall of the theorem economy, as David Bessis says: https://davidbessis.substack.com/p/the-fall-of-the-theorem-e... Edit: I just saw Tao actually mentions the above essay in his paper.
Comment linking /p/the-fall-of-the-theorem-economy
on “Mathematics in the Age of AI”Submitted "I am struggling to think who would want to read this book" (2025) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHere’s one way to think about the difference between coming up with a formal proof and having something other mathematicians can use: > A clear explanation can be found in Alex Kontorovich’s account of his own learning curve with formalized mathematics. In a nutshell: Mathlib, the dominant Lean library, is a human-curated formalization of an ever-growing fraction of existing human mathematics. It exposes clean APIs…
Comment linking /p/the-fall-of-the-theorem-economy
on “AI in Mathematics Is Forcing Big Questions”Submitted Attention is all we have: A conjectural theory of cognitive inequality as a story · 3 points
HN discussionFirst up, I agree that mathematical pedagogy is usually pretty rough, more or less from Kindergarten to Postdoc. But, this article implicitly assumes that a mathematical proof has to be utterly rigorous in order to be useful. I would assume that the author leans hard towards a "formalist" view of mathematics. I think this is an insufficient understanding of what mathematics _is_ and that embracing some amount of mat…
Comment linking /p/the-curious-case-of-broken-theorems
on “The Problem of Pedagogy in Advanced Mathematics”Submitted Attention is all we have as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThere's also the argument that human intuition can and should be trained, rather than just dismissing it, in particular when it comes to mathematics. See, for example, the book "Mathematica" by David Bessis, or this blog post: https://davidbessis.substack.com/p/thinking-fast-slow-and-su...
Comment linking /p/thinking-fast-slow-and-super-slow
on “Six Math Essentials”Submitted The Fall of the Theorem Economy as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHere's a research mathematician replying to pretty much exactly this question, and I think it's worth reading: https://davidbessis.substack.com/p/letter-to-a-phd-student It's also relevant for non-AI reasons. The upshot is: Do it if you want to. You're at an age where you're supposed to be mostly learning, but over time, start transitioning into whyever you did this (which doesn't have to mean staying in academia, a…
Comment linking /p/letter-to-a-phd-student
on “Dispatches from the possibly last days of human relevance”Submitted The Fall of the Theorem Economy as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Twins reared apart do not exist as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The real mathematics is the one that we dream – David Bessis as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted A theory of the origins of cognitive inequality as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Fall of the Theorem Economy as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Fall of the Theorem Economy as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Fall of the Theorem Economy as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Attention is all we have as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Theory of Cognitive Inequality as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
