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Stephen Ornes

Contributing Writer

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Latest Articles

artificial intelligence

The Unpredictable Abilities Emerging From Large AI Models

By Stephen Ornes
March 16, 2023
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Large language models like ChatGPT are now big enough that they’ve started to display startling, unpredictable behaviors.

geometry

The New Math of Wrinkling

By Stephen Ornes
September 22, 2022
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A comprehensive mathematical framework treats wrinkling patterns as elegant solutions to geometric problems.

A transformer model is superimposed on a human brain with a red background
neural networks

How Transformers Seem to Mimic Parts of the Brain

By Stephen Ornes
September 12, 2022
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Neural networks originally designed for language processing turn out to be great models of how our brains understand places.

Mark Braverman, in an orange shirt, stands on a path lined with trees.
2022 Fields and Abacus Medals

The Scientist Who Developed a New Way to Understand Communication

By Stephen Ornes
July 5, 2022
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Mark Braverman has spent his career translating thorny problems into the language of information complexity.

An illustration showing an orange and blue network of lines focus into a clear pyramid, emerging as a white light traveling into a clear eye.
neural networks

Will Transformers Take Over Artificial Intelligence?

By Stephen Ornes
March 10, 2022
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A simple algorithm that revolutionizes how neural networks approach language is now taking on image classification as well. It may not stop there.

Closeup photo of an automated two-wheeled robot on a wooden table
mathematical physics

A New Theory for Systems That Defy Newton’s Third Law

By Stephen Ornes
November 11, 2021
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In nonreciprocal systems, where Newton’s third law falls apart, “exceptional points” are helping researchers understand phase transitions and possibly other phenomena.

graph theory

How Big Data Carried Graph Theory Into New Dimensions

By Stephen Ornes
August 19, 2021
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Researchers are turning to the mathematics of higher-order interactions to better model the complex connections within their data.

Illustration of mathematicians descending through a cavern whose walls are lined with polynomials.
polynomials

Mathematicians Resurrect Hilbert’s 13th Problem

By Stephen Ornes
January 14, 2021
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Long considered solved, David Hilbert’s question about seventh-degree polynomials is leading researchers to a new web of mathematical connections.

Illustration of a robot and a human furiously doing math next to each other
artificial intelligence

How Close Are Computers to Automating Mathematical Reasoning?

By Stephen Ornes
August 27, 2020
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AI tools are shaping next-generation theorem provers, and with them the relationship between math and machine.


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About the author

Stephen Ornes is a science writer in Nashville, Tennessee. His book Math Art: Truth, Beauty, and Equations features the work of 19 artists who found inspiration in the heady ideas of math. He's also the host and creator of Calculated, a podcast collection of stories at the intersection of math and culture. Visit him online at stephenornes.com.
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