He spent 24 years on Barnette's Conjecture — then AI solved it as problem 180
Simon Willison · rss · 2026-10-07
In an HN comment on OpenAI's math release, Jake Boggan recounts moving to Budapest as a graph theory enthusiast and spending 24 years, on and off, on Barnette's Conjecture — even briefly believing he'd solved it last summer. Learning it was "proven" as problem 180 in OpenAI's release, he describes an odd grief, "like hearing an ex-girlfriend died suddenly in a car crash," and suspects many others feel strange tonight. A vivid human counterpoint to the AI math milestone.
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