Richard Elwes

RE: @gizmodo@flipboard.com

Thanks to Gayoung Lee at @Gizmodo@flipboard.com for this great write-up of a fun conversation!

RE: @wtgowers@mathstodon.xyz

Some important thoughts on the future of mathematical research in the age of AI.

Key question: “suppose that a mathematician solved a major problem by having a long exchange with an LLM in which the mathematician played a useful guiding role but the LLM did all the technical work and had the main ideas. Would we regard that as a major achievement of the mathematician?”

RE: @christianp@mathstodon.xyz

A beautiful mathematical construction which deserves further study!

Here's me talking about Rubik's cubes on Numberphile.

Ok fine, me talking about Rubik's cubes and Huge Numbers.

How many different possible scrambles are there for puzzle cubes bigger than Rubik's classic?

https://youtu.be/SAtFZPtbMpI?si=fHJyic1Pp-cbbBwT

I had a great time chatting to Lynne Ware Peek about Huge Numbers, on KPCW Radio's Cool Science Radio show.

https://www.kpcw.org/podcast/cool-science-radio/2026-04-30/why-huge-numbers-matter-more-than-you-think

This is a great article in @QuantaMagazine@mstdn.social about “ultrafinitism” - a (today) niche philosophical position in mathematics which rejects the reality of infinity and that of numbers bigger than those we can construct and handle directly.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-can-we-gain-by-losing-infinity-20260429/

…and yes this anti-Huge Number philosophy is discussed in my book Huge Numbers:

“[Edward] Nelson died in 2014, but it’s fair to assume that he would have greatly disapproved of this book.”

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/huge-numbers-a-story-of-counting-ambitiously-richard-elwes/c5ed5b22e218652a?ean=9781399818827&next=t

RE: @aperiodical@mathstodon.xyz

"If you’ve ever interacted with mathematically-inclined children, you’ll have experienced at least the occasional obsession with big numbers"

Indeed, and some of those mathematically inclined children never grew out of it!

Many thanks to @icecolbeveridge@mathstodon.xyz at @aperiodical@mathstodon.xyz for this nice review!

After a book-swap with a fellow author, I am the proud owner of "Dermatology Essentials for General Practice" by the brilliant Dr Laura Manning.

Recommended: an authoritative & strangely compelling account of the seemingly endless ways in which human skin can turn weird, generously illustrated.

scionpublishing.com/product/derm...

Ford Madox Ford once said: "Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you."

It was fun applying the Page 99 Test to Huge Numbers.

https://page99test.blogspot.com/2026/04/richard-elwess-huge-numbers.html

This is a lovely bit of science communication by Simon Goodwin - using maths to understand an unexplained phenomenon in snooker.

https://youtu.be/ZVleTuJE1mU?si=WKP2wayQ5ZhvutFK

RE: @icecolbeveridge@mathstodon.xyz

I love it when the rules of sports competitions produce crazy incentives. Best of luck to Den Bosch who need to LOSE their football match this week-end in order to win promotion.

First media review for Huge Numbers!

Emily Conover in Science News writes: "It’s a delightful survey of the field of googology, the study of large numbers.... It’s a joy to marvel at how boundaries have been broken time and again, thanks to the creative, intrepid explorers of the biggest numbers known."

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/huge-numbers-book-math-googology