Forget Chatbots. You Need a Notebook.

Back in 2012, as a young assistant professor, I traveled to Berkeley to attend a wedding. On the first morning after we arrived, my wife had a conference call, so I decided to wander the nearby university campus to work on a vexing theory problem my collaborators and I had taken to calling “The Beast.”

I remember what happened next because ​I wrote an essay​ about the experience. The tale starts slow:

“It was early, and the fog was just starting its march down the Berkeley hills. I eventually wandered into an eucalyptus grove. Once there, I sipped my coffee and thought.”

I eventually come across an interesting new technique to circumvent a key mathematical obstacle thrown up by The Beast. But…