Strogatz's BIG MATH earns Kirkus praise, warns AI black boxes outpace human control
stevenstrogatz · x · 2026-10-01
Mathematicians Steven Strogatz and Alex Townsend (both Cornell professors) received a favorable Kirkus pre-publication review for their book BIG MATH: The Hidden Codes That Run Our World, out Nov 10, 2026.
- The book traces consequential ideas from planetary motion to Netflix recommendations, Google Maps, and AI models, covering matrices, image compression, prediction systems, and simulations, featuring figures from Newton to DeepMind's Demis Hassabis
- The authors caution that modern mathematicians are adopting black-box systems operating outside intuition and even the physical world
- They argue LLMs, AI, and quantum computers may operate beyond human understanding: "the machines are beginning to reason about us—and calculate what to do with their freedom," and we don't yet know how to measure alignment with our values, let alone guarantee it
A popular math history that doubles as a warning for the AI era.
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