Google DeepMind's Discovery team makes new progress on the elusive 6th Busy Beaver number
robertarail · x · 2026-10-22
Google DeepMind's Discovery team, in a project led by student researcher Marco Santos, reports new discoveries in the hunt for the 6th Busy Beaver number — the quest for the smallest Turing machines that run longest before halting. Since halting is undecidable, no universal algorithm exists, and progress comes from collaborative exploration. Lead researcher TZahavy notes the work explores a different facet of mathematical creativity: unlike AI systems that solve human-posed theorems, this project is about discovering hidden problems.
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