Daniel Litt

@littmath

Assistant professor (of mathematics) at the University of Toronto, visiting Harvard Fall 2026. Forever confused. Algebraic geometry, number theory, etc. He/him.

Toronto, Ontario

daniellitt.com

Replies Reposts Media Articles

Pinned
Daniel Litt
@littmath
Jan 14
New paper with Josh Lam, about which I'm really excited! I want to try to briefly explain what the point is in this thread.
19
Daniel Litt
@littmath
13h
So there's a mathematical question I've been thinking about on and off for about 10 years. For the first 5 or so years I made very little progress, but learned a bit about the general area (while working on other things). In the last 5 years I've made some modest progress with
26
Daniel Litt
@littmath
Sep 4
SITUATION DETECTED: andrew wiles IPOs for a trillion dollars
10
Daniel Litt
@littmath
Sep 3
I don't know about the chess analogy or the views of people with money, but I do think there's pretty broad agreement that furthering human knowledge is an inherently good thing.
The problem with is that maths has, at least for the last 100 years or so, justified its existence (i.e. funding) through the idea that furthering human knowledge is an inherently good thing. And I just don't think the people with money believe that anymore...
16
Daniel Litt
@littmath
Sep 2
This is right. People are (understandably) concerned about negative second-order effects of these solutions, especially to problems that have been central to a field for some time and guided past work. But, don't you believe in mathematics? There will always be more to learn.
micah Warren
@AchimWar
Sep 2
"math is dead because a computer solved a problem" Every serious mathematician knows that a solution to a famous problem immediately generates dozens or hundreds more problems ... that's how it's always worked
12