Claude formalizes Fermat's Last Theorem in 11 days, generating 13M lines of Lean code
APPSO · wechat · 2026-09-05
Anthropic announced that Claude, running almost autonomously, completed the first end-to-end computer-verified formal proof of Fermat's Last Theorem in 11 days.
- Led by Tianyi Peng (Tsinghua Yao class alum, Columbia professor, Anthropic researcher); Imperial College's Kevin Buzzard estimated in 2024 such work would take years
- Multiple Claude agents collaborated, generating 13M lines of Lean code (5x the size of Mathlib), building 30,300 theorems with 29,500 intermediate ones used in the final proof, consuming 6B output tokens
- The result passes Lean checks relying only on base axioms; the open Prove2Me platform managed task dependencies and parallel work
- Context: Wiles' 1995 human proof spanned 100+ pages and took a year to fix verification gaps; formalization may reshape how future math papers pair human explanations with machine-verifiable proofs
- Anthropic also reset weekly usage limits for Claude Max users
Related event: Claude Produces First Formalized Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem in 11 Days(52 posts)→
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