Facebook's Neural Net Can Solve This Differential Equation in One Second

If today's college students could find a way to get their hands on a copy of Facebook's latest neural network, they could cheat all the way through Calc 3. They could even solve the differential equation pictured above in under 30 seconds. Okay, so maybe this isn't going to be a replacement for Wolfram Alpha anytime soon, but Facebook really did build a neural net that can complete complex mathematical problems for the first time, rather than the plain old arithmetic in which these AI models usually wheel and deal. The work represents a huge leap forward in computers' abilities to understand mathematical logic. The research is outlined in a new paper, "Deep Learning for Symbolic Mathematics," published in arXiv, a repository of scientific research in areas like math, computer science, and physics, run by Cornell University.