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Re:“Math 2.0” will need to value mathematical progress more ... by kurthr on Thursday October 08, 2026 @12:49PM (#50008250)
If I just add a few more parameters to my model I can make it fit anything!

Sure, it depends on what you're trying to do. Fit an equation or understand it. Yes, you can use a reduced mass to simplify the equations and make it more accurate, which usually isn't necessary when the new center is at less than 1% of the radius of the Sun (note ellipses have 2 foci from Kepler/Newton). Even Jupiter's center of rotation is at the surface of the Sun, and both have eccentricities <1%.

Of course, if you're using epicycles, you're never going to get Einstein's elliptical precession correction to the orbit of Mercury. Simpler, is usually better for models, even when you need greater and greater accuracy, overfitting is the enemy of explanation (to coin a phrase).

All models are wrong, some are useful. - Box

Re:“Math 2.0” will need to value mathematical progress more ... by __MatrixMan__ on Thursday October 08, 2026 @01:36PM (#50009034)
Agreed. So to return to the root comment... if AI can generate for us all of those "wrong" models in a consistent way, then the job that remains for humans is to decide which one or ones would be useful. I bet it turns out to be a lot more work than it sounds like.
Re:“Math 2.0” will need to value mathematical progress more ... by kurthr on Saturday October 10, 2026 @12:42PM (#50034609)
It's interesting that it seems to be back to the future, where picking the right problem to solve and evaluating the taste of the solution are still paramount, unless I suppose you either can afford massive amounts of compute to find the correct optimum by chance, or you know the solution space is so vast you'll never find it, and are fine with having some agent slop it's way through each time you want a change.
Re:“Math 2.0” will need to value mathematical progress more ... by its_ethan on Thursday October 08, 2026 @01:39PM (#50009061)
> If I just add a few more parameters to my model I can make it fit anything!

Dealing with people wanting to do this is story of my current professional life lol I would love to get them onto the same page that chasing down a final <1% improvement isn't (always) worth it

"All models are wrong, some are useful" - this is what I was trying to say, I was just being a bit snarky/pedantic because the commenter above seemed to be trying to pull a "gotcha" saying that the "truth" of something overrides the utility of it.