Both the video of Anima Anandkumar’s Stanford seminar and her scientific paper on Neural Operators really got me excited—the ideas feel fresh and powerful.
The paper is quite technical and digs into the math behind Neural Operators, without talking much about robotics. In her talk, though, she clearly links the work to robots, and it sounds as if robotics is a big focus for her team. What jumped out at me is how different her style is from Elon Musk’s approach with Tesla’s Optimus robot. Anandkumar begins with deep theory, building firm mathematical foundations first. Musk takes a “just build it” path—make it, test it, break it, fix it, and keep going. This contrast reminds me of engineering school and the Faraday‑Maxwell story. Faraday was the hands‑on experimenter who uncovered the basics of electricity and magnetism through careful tests. Maxwell came later and wrote the elegant equations that explained what Faraday had already shown. So I wonder: will the roles flip this time? Will deep theory from researchers like Anandkumar guide the breakthroughs first, with practice following? Or will practical builders like Musk sprint ahead and let theory catch up afterward? Either way, watching these two paths unfold side by side is thrilling. It feels like we’re standing on the edge of something big. On Wed, 16 Jul 2025 at 04:11, Jon Zingale <[email protected]> wrote: > Even if just for the freedom of scale, learning infinite dimensional > function spaces, etc... > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caZyFlSSKtI > https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.10973 > > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / > ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
