{"id":25335,"date":"2026-05-02T12:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T12:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/25335\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T12:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T12:50:09","slug":"mathematicians-claim-significant-discovery-using-chatgpt-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/25335\/","title":{"rendered":"Mathematicians Claim Significant Discovery Using ChatGPT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did ChatGPT just solve an arcane math problem that\u2019s foiled mathematicians for over sixty years? Some leading experts say yes, Scientific American reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, 23-year-old Liam Price shared a solution to one of the so-called Erd\u0151s problems, a series of famously abstruse math conjectures left behind by the Hungarian mathematician Paul Erd\u0151s. While some of these conjectures have gotten the better of savants in the field, Price, who has no advanced math degree, seemingly stumbled on a solution for one of them by simply prompting GPT-5.4 for an answer.<\/p>\n

While many AI-generated Erd\u0151s solutions have turned out to be a bust, experts who viewed Price\u2019s response \u2014 which was posted to erdosproblems.com<\/a> \u2014 say it\u2019s the real deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one is a bit different because people did look at it, and the humans that looked at it just collectively made a slight wrong turn at move one,\u201d Terence Tao, a mathematician at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has become a prominent voice adjudicating on AI\u2019s tackling of math problems, told SciAm.<\/p>\n

Tao said that \u201cthere was kind of a standard sequence of moves that everyone who worked on the problem previously started by doing,\u201d but the AI took an unexpected approach by using a well-known formula that no one had thought to apply to this type of question, per SciAm.<\/p>\n

Tao maintains a database<\/a> of all the Erd\u0151s problems AI has helped \u201csolve,\u201d but in most cases the AI simply dredged up an existing solution that hadn\u2019t been well known, or provided a proof that turned out not to be quite right.<\/p>\n

But this latest breakthrough could be an example of an AI truly \u201cthinking\u201d outside the box, overcoming the flawed hivemind that human math wizzes had fallen into.<\/p>\n

Still, it required humans to apply the finishing touches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe raw output of ChatGPT\u2019s proof was actually quite poor. So it required an expert to kind of sift through and actually understand what it was trying to say,\u201d Jared Lichtman, a mathematician at Stanford University whose doctoral thesis centered on one Erd\u0151s\u2019s conjectures, told SciAm.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have discovered a new way to think about large numbers and their anatomy,\u201d Tao enthused. \u201cIt\u2019s a nice achievement. I think the jury is still out on the long-term significance.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s notable that experts in the field are enthusiastic about the ChatGPT solution, but it\u2019s worth proceeding with caution, as sometimes these claims don\u2019t pan out. In October, an OpenAI vice president Kevin Weil jumped on a claim that ChatGPT had come up with a solution for a another Erd\u0151s problem. It turned out not to be quite the accomplishment he thought it was \u2014 the AI drew from an existing solution \u2014 and Weil deleted his post claiming the breakthrough after being viciously blasted by competitors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More on AI: Top Medical Journal Publishes Searing Article Warning Against Medical AI<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did ChatGPT just solve an arcane math problem that\u2019s foiled mathematicians for over sixty years? Some leading experts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[580,17123,17124,11699,157,17125,17126,17122],"class_list":{"0":"post-25335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-openai","8":"tag-chatgpt","9":"tag-liam-price","10":"tag-math-problems","11":"tag-mathematicians","12":"tag-openai","13":"tag-paul-erdos","14":"tag-solution","15":"tag-terence-tao"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}