New Delhi, Sept. 15 -- In a post earlier this month, mathematician Terence Tao described a recent incident at the frontier of his field. He spoke of how, just days after a young mathematician named Stadlmann published a proof (addressing a long-standing problem about the size of the gaps between prime numbers), several artificial intelligence (AI) companies announced numerically stronger solutions.

While Tao was relieved that Stadlmann managed to publish her solution before the problem was "contaminated," he feared for the future of his discipline.

The real value of that kind of research lies not just in finding the answer, but in the process of arriving at it-the techniques you have to invent, the dead ends you learn to recognize and t...