Mathematician. Full of contradictions. Opinions are entirely my own. Retweets =/= endorsements. Likes are often bookmarks or acknowledgements. He/him/his.
Vancouver, BC
Joined March 2011
- Tweets61K
- Following4.1K
- Followers4.4K
- Likes32.5K
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
This article in @Forbes -- by a radiologist with a mathematical background -- is really good. The curious example of fingernail "clubbing" as a correlate of more serious disease is super-interesting too. Thanks for sharing your expertise, Dr @PaulHsieh.
My latest in today's Forbes! How much does "human understanding" matter in the era of AI?
(Includes reference to recent excellent article by @stevenstrogatz in @TheAtlantic.)
forbes.com/sites/paulhsieh/2…
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
The recent drop by OpenAI contains a refutation of ETH, a proof of "local smoothing", which implies the full Kakeya conjecture, and a proof of the existence of pure Yang-Mills theory. AGMAI asks for release of the materials connected with the last.
agmai.org/#request-immediate…
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
Congratulations to UBC researchers Dr. Feng Jiang and Dr. Corinna Schindler on being awarded prestigious Arthur B. McDonald Fellowships from the @NSERC_CRSNG!
The McDonald Fellowship recognizes exceptional early-career researchers and supports them in enhancing their research capacity and becoming leaders in their respective fields.
This recognition is a testament to the remarkable research talent at @UBC and the important contributions our researchers are making to advancing knowledge and creating a positive impact on society.
Congratulations to both on this well-deserved achievement!
@UBCForestry @ubcscience
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
NFL Player Turned Mathematician (@JohnCUrschel) Solves Problem that Eluded Scholars for Decades
On the growth factor for Gaussian elimination – great interview with Christiane @amanpour
youtu.be/W1uiG8rk2Eg?is=1neW… via @YouTube
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
BC's eye-watering deficit spending rolls on after Saturday's election, no matter who wins.
My latest in @BIVnews:
biv.com/news/commentary/rob-…
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
Melody Tung Chan, born around 1984 in the United States, is an American mathematician and Professor of Mathematics at Brown University.
She specializes in combinatorial algebraic geometry, tropical geometry, and graph theory. Chan earned her PhD from UC Berkeley in 2012 under Bernd Sturmfels and has advanced the moduli of tropical curves and metric graphs.
With Galatius and Payne, she proved exponential growth in the cohomology of moduli spaces of curves, overturning conjectures. She has received the Alice T. Schafer Prize, Sloan Fellowship, AWM-Microsoft Research Prize, AMS Fellowship, and Simons Fellowship.
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
I’m excited to announce that I will be working at the Mathematical AI Safety Institute (MAISI) full-time as its founding Scientific Director! This means I will not be joining OpenAI as an employee, though I will still be collaborating with them, and I’m happy to announce that OpenAI will be supporting MAISI. They have offered us $10MM in API credits, and access to their latest models for our research use. Moreover, they will be participating in a multi-lab AI safety workshop we are organizing for next year with other frontier AI labs.
As an independent research institute, we are also in conversations with other labs and AI safety orgs about how MAISI can collaborate with them and contribute quickly to AI safety research across the industry. As we’ve seen over the past few weeks, the need for action on AI safety is extremely urgent. Research is an important part of that, and mathematicians have an important role to play!
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
How can the math community forge the best path forward in the AI age? We're committing $15M to workshops and initiatives — plus free AI computing resources for foundation-supported researchers — through new partnerships with @AnthropicAI and @OpenAI: bit.ly/4zpfIbW
#math #science #AI
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
Thomas Hales on Terry Tao’s blog: “Mathematicians have been weighing in on what they value about mathematics. For me, what matters is the consistency of math and its unparalleled reliability in support of science and civilization.”
terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/…
"That is, OpenAI didn’t understand its own model’s proof. And still, more than a month later, no one fully does."
The Scientific American article is an interesting read.
Q: How often do mathematicians find a proof path they don't yet understand even though they make it work?
Fascinating … “Rumors that OpenAI’s “Navier-Stokes” solution stole the work of two mathematicians may have been overblown … When you go to the details, it is a different approach,” says Gonzalo Cao-Labora, a mathematician at EPFL … All said that it’s increasingly clear that the company’s proof does not follow the Spanish program.”
scientificamerican.com/artic…
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
Fields medallist Hugo Duminil-Copin was deeply shaken by OpenAI’s release of more than 700 AI-generated mathematical manuscripts, including work on 16 questions directly relevant to his research.
“On Tuesday night, I cried, and it woke up my daughter”
“They have annihilated my field of research.”
lemonde.fr/sciences/article/…
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
The overall fiscal cost is not stated in the proposal. I estimate this would cost approximately $2.5 billion, which (for context) would increase the deficit by roughly ~20%.
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
The research community is in uproar after OpenAI released a trove of more than 700 mathematical preprints entirely generated by AI on 6 October
go.nature.com/4rUx91I
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
If the @Conservative_BC plan to change ICBC's auto insurance, they should tell voters before they tell the the group that stands to make millions from the change. My latest in @BIVnews:
biv.com/news/commentary/rob-…
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
Major fiasco BC Conservatives halfway point of campaign. Secret letter tells lawyers, industry insiders plans for auto insurance before telling public. Assuming letter won't be leaked. Saying "everything is on table." Doerkson has some explaining to do.
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
As you read this meticulously researched article, keep in mind: Danielle Smith and the UCP made it all easier, not harder, for these guys to control our political agenda.
Don't for a moment think it stops at one referendum question, either.
Say no to the 9 and remain.
Mark Mac Lean retweeted
"CBC News and Radio-Canada were able to link the Rise of Alberta website and Keith Wilson via the emails used to set up their respective websites...Rise of Alberta website also listed the same mailing address as Wilson’s law firm in St. Albert, Alta." cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/r…
