Machines don't care about elegance: an O(n^1.9992) algorithm for 3SUM

aran_nayebi · x · 2026-10-08

NoahCitron quips that mathematicians see math as beautiful while machines see it as ugly — humans only ever found the elegant answers. As evidence, he cites a newly found O(n^1.9992) algorithm for 3SUM, suggesting automated search is breaking past complexity bounds long assumed optimal due to human aesthetic bias.

Related event: Truly Subquadratic 3SUM and Subcubic APSP Break Decades-Old Barriers, Reportedly with Claude's Help(13 posts)→

Original post →

More from Research

• New OpenAI paper extends Riemann zeta zero-free region to Re(s) > 7/8 — PTenigma · 2026-10-08
• OpenAI math paper on Weil classes reported flawed, raising doubts about unformalized proofs — ctjlewis · 2026-10-08
• ZooWork-ShopRanker: open e-commerce rerankers (0.6B-8B) aligned to shopping preferences — kalyan_kpl · 2026-10-08
• LessWrong Thought Experiment: How Should a Model Guess Today's Date With No Date Context? — LessWrong 精选 · 2026-10-08
• Ethereum's Justin Drake calls for 'bunker mode' crypto migration as AI math advances threaten assumptions — marcvanderchijs · 2026-10-08
• Lean proof may not map 1-to-1 to paper: GPT formalization takes shortcuts on hard lemmas — ctjlewis · 2026-10-08

Research channel →