Terence Tao: major Riemann hypothesis progress came from AI-generated ideas nobody yet understands
burny_tech · x · 2026-11-13
Terence Tao says a significant advance on the Riemann hypothesis—one of math's biggest open problems—has come from ideas generated by AI, and nobody understands those ideas yet.
The hypothesis pins down how primes are randomly distributed, and much of number theory is proven only conditionally on it. Tao says a full proof remains distant and will likely require a genuinely new idea.
His verdict: "We are getting answers without understanding, which is a very strange era to be in."
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