Will computers make mathematicians obsolete?

[M Quack]

There is already a sizable branch of mathematics close to computer sciences that deals with developing algorithms for computers so that they can carry out math.

The more powerful the computers, the wider the scope for exotic math to be carried out by them, so if anything, the progress in computers has increased the need for mathematicians.

As to the mind being just another machine that can be replaced by a computer - this probably is true in theory, but we are still a far cry away from that. "Artificial intelligence" can so far only solve very few, very very well defined problems. Last time I checked, you could not tell a computer "sit in that car, learn to drive, drive yourself to that Chess tournament, learn the game, win, come back and do my homework on partial differential equations".

PS: I did not want to give the impression that I could do that :)

 

[ImaLooser]

The mind is not made up of fairy dust and unicorns. It is itself a machine. Any and all insights you or anyone have towards math can be replicated by a computer.

That's the theory, but no one knows how to do it. So one may or may not believe that.

 

[ImaLooser]

I would still like to hear your thoughts about this kind of theorem finding. Is it feasible and could it replace human mathematicians?

I looked into it in about 1995. It's called automatic theorem proving. I found that everyone in the field had given up, and had abandoned their graduate students.

The most positive results were Doug Lenat's from CMU. It so happens that I worked for a former CMU professor who told me that the consensus there was that Lenat's results were bogus.

The basic problem is that mathematicians do not know how they prove difficult theorems. Brute force search, such as used in chess, seems entirely unfeasible even in theory.

So I gave up on that.

 

[Kholdstare]

To OP: No. We have programs which simulate physics very accurately. But it did not make physicists obsolete.