Mathematics Without Mathematicians — 2026's Most Interesting Ideas

Daniel Borretti collected the five ideas that actually moved the needle in 2026. TLDR's Dan wrote this up so you don't have to hunt down the original posts.

The list is worth reading for the curation alone — Borretti picked things that aren't just trending, but things that shift how you think about the work. It's the kind of list a good editor makes: the pieces that would be forgotten next month without this kind of aggregation.

For the Brown working people who use tools like Obsidian, Lara, and the K-2 screener, the practical takeaway is straightforward: these ideas are the ones your tools are actually starting to reflect. The ones you can feel in your day-to-day, not the ones that live only in conference talks.

Why this matters for us: the ideas that survive past the conference circuit are the ones your tools become — and this is the list of what survives.