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How do we prevent mathemathics from devolving into the Medieval Era of secrecy?

158 points · 146 comments · jjgreen

  1. lacker · · focus · HN ↗
    I have seen two worries recently:

    1. People will publish so much frontier mathematics, humans won't be able to understand it all

    2. Frontier mathematics will all be kept secret

    Fortunately, these seem like they can't both happen at once.

    1. eru · · focus · HN ↗
      > 1. People will publish so much frontier mathematics, humans won't be able to understand it all

      That already happened before AI.

      > 2. Frontier mathematics will all be kept secret

      Gauss kept lots of frontier mathematics in his drawer. In the 20th centuries government spy agencies developed public key cryptography long before that was known to the public. To give just two examples.

      It's not the end of the world.

      And what do you care, if someone keeps frontier mathematics a secret, if you can ask DeepSeek version 10 in 2030 to prove the Riemann hypothesis for you?

      1. schoen · · focus · HN ↗
        > long before that was known to the public

        About 4-6 years earlier, depending what you want to count, although the inventors may also have been less clear on its importance or applications compared to the later public inventors.

        <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Public-key_cryptography#Classified_discovery" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Public-key_cryptography#Classi...

        I guess that&#x27;s kind of a long time in computer technology terms.

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