Math professor here.
Different academic disciplines are very different, and most don't engage in the same kind of black-and-white problem solving that mathematicians do, where you either have solved a problem or you haven't.
But all insist that you engage in some sort of outwardly visible production in your field: books, articles, conference presentations, public lectures, exhibitions, performances, something.
We haven't yet figured out what that should be, but I presume that everyone would agree that this should continue. As one possible model, check out this blog post of Terry Tao's, where he gives his own perspective on the recently proved Jacobian conjecture.
https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/07/21/a-digestion-of-the...
When computers can solve the underlying actual problem, this sort of work seems likely to rise in value, and be something which a greater number of mathematicians engage in.
Different academic disciplines are very different, and most don't engage in the same kind of black-and-white problem solving that mathematicians do, where you either have solved a problem or you haven't.
But all insist that you engage in some sort of outwardly visible production in your field: books, articles, conference presentations, public lectures, exhibitions, performances, something.
We haven't yet figured out what that should be, but I presume that everyone would agree that this should continue. As one possible model, check out this blog post of Terry Tao's, where he gives his own perspective on the recently proved Jacobian conjecture.
https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/07/21/a-digestion-of-the...
When computers can solve the underlying actual problem, this sort of work seems likely to rise in value, and be something which a greater number of mathematicians engage in.