Mathematics as a new Age of Discovery (and what they might find)

OpenAI just dropped 372 math proofs on the world. They dropped a Navier-Stokes proof about a month back and there was a bunch of controversy so I guess the new PR strategy is shock and awe. I’m not qualified to assess quality but watching the reaction of mathematicians, some of these results are v significant. e.g. this post on X from a Stanford math prof: Another one: The Kakeya problem in 4-D! Just this summer, Hong Wang won the Fields medal for the Kakeya proof in 3-D (Wang-Zahl, 2026) So, Fields medal-worthy. But the feelings. "I spent thousands of hours on that problem. I really enjoyed it. Hearing that it is solved somehow makes me sad in a far-off way, like hearing an ex-girlfriend died suddenly in a car crash." (on Hacker News) "it’s as if trucks had run me over; all the problems (and therefore research avenues) that I mentioned in my lectures, articles, and funding applications have been solved." (on X) If they wanted shock and awe then they got it: 100+ reactions from…