Free ChatGPT solves a decade-old maths dice problem in 13 minutes
Chris_Armstrong · x · 2026-09-14
- New Scientist reporter Matthew Sparkes tested whether a free ChatGPT could extend the famous non-transitive dice puzzle — five dice with equal odds of winning and no ties, which took mathematicians over a decade to find — to a six-player version.
- The solution space is astronomically large (more possible designs than atoms in the universe), so brute force was never an option.
- After two clarifying prompts and roughly 13 minutes of "thinking", the chatbot produced a solution to the long-open problem, shocking the reporter.
- The piece situates this within AI's rapid rise in mathematics, including this week's Fermat's Last Theorem formalization milestone.
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