Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences

01/10/2026

Faithful or Traitor?

Catch Professor Hannah Fry—mathematician, author, broadcaster, University of Cambridge’s Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics, and frequent speaker at the INI—on The Celebrity Traitors, starting tonight on BBC One and iPlayer!

Will she use probability to hunt down Traitors as a Faithful, or game theory to execute the ultimate bluff as a Traitor?

Which role do you think suits her best? 👇

30/09/2026

What are the limits of computation? And what can mathematical proofs tell us about them?

In our latest interview, Pavel Pudlák, Rothschild Distinguished Visiting Fellow for the INI's Logical foundations of complexity theory programme, shares insights from a lifetime of research into some of the deepest questions in mathematics and theoretical computer science.

Tomorrow at 4pm, Pavel will give his public lecture, Complexity of computations and proofs, exploring how the complexity of proofs connects to major open problems including P vs NP.

Watch the full interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAZYM9idROM

Find out more about the lecture: https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/50770/

29/09/2026

You're not going to want to miss this one.

https://mailchi.mp/newton/newsletter-sign-up

Our monthly newsletter is always packed with news, opportunities, and upcoming lectures and events. But this month is a bumper edition. We say goodbye to our director, track the latest developments in the AI and maths story, and try to decide which picture to use for our annual report cover.

The September edition comes out tomorrow, make sure you're signed up so it lands directly in your inbox.

24/09/2026

Historians of mathematics might look back at the past month as a critical moment in our field. In the whirlwind of news and opinions, we've gathered some of the key moments, resources, and reactions to the developments in AI and mathematics.

- In the first few weeks of September, there was the controversy surrounding OpenAI’s claim (https://openai.com/index/navier-stokes-solution/) that their internal models had solved the Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness problem. Here is our statement: https://www.newton.ac.uk/news/ini-news/ai-in-mathematics-and-the-navier-stokes-problem/.

- In the days that followed, 27 Fields Medallists signed an open letter (https://mathandai.org/) articulating “A severe misalignment of AI in mathematics.” This has since been endorsed by 8,000 mathematical scientists. One notable name missing from the list is Timothy Gowers, who published a thoughtful essay on why he didn’t sign (https://gowers.wordpress.com/2026/09/17/why-i-didnt-sign-the-fields-medallists-letter/).

- At the Heidelberg Laureate forum, a panel discussion with Michael Harris, Peter Scholze, Jacob Tsimerman, and Geordie Williamson articulated some of the diverse viewpoints in the maths community (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7_d_sgui6o).

-42 Fellows and Foreign Members of the Royal Society (including our Director, Ulrike Tillmann) wrote to its president to express their “extreme concern about the pace of development of AI.” (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-xOkPeHmDEdRigT2YcP2nLfTB56yOn4FFbBfVUIXCUE/edit?tab=t.0)

- Grant Sanderson wrote an influential guest post on Terrence Tao’s blog about how we need to better celebrate “motivated explanations” rather than just proofs (https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/09/18/if-math-is-more-than-proof-we-need-to-better-celebrate-the-rest-of-it/).

- Last week the Fields Institute in Toronto held the first of five sessions (https://www.fields.utoronto.ca/activities/26-27/Leiden) for the community to engage with the Leiden Declaration (https://leidendeclaration.ai/) .

- An advisory group on maths and AI (https://agmai.org/) was formed with the support of the Institute for Advanced Study to help AI labs communicate new results with the mathematical community. The group includes our director, Ulrike Tillmann. Martin Hairer wrote a blog post about why he joined the group (https://proofsandprompts.com/2026/09/22/why-i-agreed-to-join-agmai/).

-A range of websites and initiatives have formed to help mathematical scientists make sense of the changes AI will bring to the field:

Proof and prompts (https://proofsandprompts.com/) - “A blog written by mathematicians, for mathematicians, where people can think aloud about how these tools are changing mathematical practice.”

AI.MATH (https://ai.math.ms/en/) - An initiative which presents “draft positions on the future of mathematical research and mathematics degree programmes in the age of AI, alongside questions and possible answers.”

This is a quickly-evolving story and will surely develop further over the coming weeks and months.

What did we miss?

23/09/2026

Proud to see that the University of Cambridge’s School of Physical Sciences (of which we are a part!) renewed its Athena Swan Silver award this month.

We believe diversity in all its forms is beneficial for the mathematical sciences and have a range of programmes and initiatives to promote inclusivity in our programmes.

This includes support for caring responsibilities, accessibility needs, and participants from the Global South.

We’re particularly happy to see the progress on our EDI action plan has helped the case for the School’s Athena Swan Silver award. Despite this achievement, there remains much to do!

https://www.newton.ac.uk/outreach/diversity-in-mathematics/



Cc

21/09/2026

Even as the leaves start to turn and the air gets cooler, somehow September always feels like the start of something new.

This September, we have two new programmes in the building, that will run until the end of 2026:

🫯Logical foundations of complexity🫯
https://www.newton.ac.uk/event/lfc/

AND

🪢Mathematics of many-body entanglement🪢
https://www.newton.ac.uk/event/mmb/

To get a better sense of the problems these programmes are thinking about, check out these helpful explainers from our colleagues at Plus Magazine:

On measuring complexity: https://plus.maths.org/not-just-matter-time-part-1

On tensor networks in quantum systems: https://plus.maths.org/tensor-networks-taking-stress-out-quantum-physics

18/09/2026

We were thrilled to welcome members of the public to the INI and the Centre for Mathematical Sciences yesterday as part of Open Cambridge.

It was a fantastic opportunity to connect with the local community and find out a bit more about our neighbours in the Betty & Gordon Moore Library and the fluid dynamics lab in the Centre for Mathematical Sciences.

We don’t often offer tours, but the interest and enthusiasm of the visitors yesterday made us think we should do it more often.

Thanks for coming!

18/09/2026

This is an important discussion at critical time. Thank you to our friends at the Fields Institute for organising it.

Five sessions for mathematical scientists to help make the principles of the Leiden Declaration on AI real and practical.

On June 2, an international group of mathematicians published the Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics to address the challenges and risks of AI in math.

On September 8, OpenAI claimed one of its models had solved the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem.

On September 11, twenty-five Fields Medalists, including Terence Tao, Maryna Viazovska and Peter Scholze, published a statement calling this kind of announcement a "severe misalignment" between AI development and the goals of mathematics.

The speed at which AI is now churning out potential solutions to major open problems should no longer proceed without some agreed-upon regulation.

Engaging with the Leiden Declaration responds to this urgency. This five-session workshop, organized by the Fields Institute, brings together mathematicians who have been active in the Leiden discussions for a recurring panel conversation. The purpose of the series is to treat each recommendation as an open problem in practice.

Audience members are invited to bring their own cases and disagreements into the conversation. We hope you will add your voice to the most important civic conversation of our time.

Learn more and register today: https://www.fields.utoronto.ca/activities/26-27/Leiden

16/09/2026

How do large-scale properties arise out of the interactions of tiny quantum particles?

Topological order might be a good way to understand this question, and Prof Yoshiko Ogata (University of Kyoto) is exploring an operator-algebraic perspective on topological orders in her Kirk Public Lecture today.

Find out more: https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/50816/

Tune in live: https://www.newton.ac.uk/news/watch-live/

15/09/2026

How can the framework of tensor networks help us better understand quantum many-body systems?

Prof Norbert Schuch (University of Vienna) is the Rothschild Distinguished Visiting Fellow for our Mathematics of many-body entanglement programme, which kicked off at the beginning of September.

More details about the talk:
https://www.newton.ac.uk/seminar/50815/

Watch live or catch up on our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/