I’ve often wondered if there was more that we had yet to discover. Elements to add to the periodic table. Additional plants with medicinal properties. New Laws of Physics. And I wondered if there was a way to speed up our ability to find them. Instead of just relying on trial and error, accidental discoveries, and the adjacent possible – discoveries slowly building upon those that came before, what if there was another way, an alternate method that would let us super charge the speed of innovation. Perhaps AI would be the answer. Helping us find new drug combinations or habitable exoplanets quicker than humans ever could. Or as we saw with COVID-19 speeding up the vaccination creation process.
Well, as it turns out there is a way to speed up innovation, at least when it comes to math. Thanks to the creation of a new machine capable of discovering new mathematics that humans have never before encountered.
As Science Alert puts it:
His name was Srinivasa Ramanujan, and he had a unique gift for dreaming up mathematics of a kind few, if any, had ever contemplated.
Attributing his skills to a divine goddess, the Indian mathematician introduced thousands of mathematical ideas and equations to the world, and was especially known for devising conjectures: mathematical propositions not yet proven to be true (in which case they become classified as theorems).
Such an ability – crafting mathematical statements that are both informed and yet uncertain – is rare, and relatively few mathematicians make their name on the basis of such output, let alone theorists with little in the way of formal training.
But now, a new algorithmic invention developed by researchers in Israel could help us automate the discovery of mathematical conjectures like those Ramanujan once pioneered.
Named after Ramanujan – who died in India at the age of 32 – the ‘Ramanujan Machine’ is a computerised system capable of self-generating conjectures involving mathematical constants: strange numbers like π and e that seem to crop up all over the place, even if entirely by coincidence.
‘Fundamental mathematical constants such as e and π are ubiquitous in diverse fields of science, from abstract mathematics and geometry to physics, biology and chemistry,’ researchers from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology explain in a newly published study detailing the system.
‘Nevertheless, for centuries new mathematical formulas relating fundamental constants have been scarce and usually discovered sporadically.’
The Ramanujan Machine might speed things up a little on that front. A system of algorithms powered by a community of cloud-connected computers, it’s capable of producing conjectures and discovering mathematical formulas for fundamental constants that stand to reveal the underlying structure of the constants.
So far, the algorithmic machine has generated conjectures that were easily provable, while discovering new fractional ways to calculate constants like π, and also coming up with conjectures that are yet to be proven.
‘The computer doesn’t care if proving the formula is easy or difficult, and doesn’t base the new results on any prior mathematical knowledge, but only on the numbers in mathematical constants,’ explains senior author and physicist Ido Kaminer.
‘It’s important to point out that the algorithm itself is incapable of proving the conjectures it found – at this point, the task is left to be resolved by human mathematicians.’
I read about Ramanujan last year in Stephen Wolfram’s book Idea Makers so I’m excited to see him finally get the recognition that he deserves. But what I’m more excited about this new machine and what it means not just for the future of mathematics but the future of humanity as well. With machines capable of making scientific discoveries for us there’s no telling what heights we can reach.
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