Simon Willison 博客 · 10/7/2026, 4:47:55 AM
OpenAI Math Repo Claims Barnette Conjecture Solved, Stirring Community
OpenAI's open-source math repository on GitHub claims to have proven the Barnette Conjecture in graph theory, a problem that has occupied researchers for decades. This development has sparked widespread discussion and complex emotions among mathematicians, including those who spent years working on it, signaling a potential breakthrough in AI-driven formal mathematical proofs.
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I was a graph theory junkie long ago and even moved to Budapest for awhile to study among the greats. While I was there I started working on Barnette's Conjecture which came to occupy my thoughts over the next 24 years of my life, on and off as I worked in many different fields. Last summer I even thought for a few days that I had actually solved it. But it's supposedly proven here - problem 180. I don't know what to think exactly. I spent thousands of hours on that problem. I really enjoyed it. Hearing that it is solved somehow makes me sad in a far-off way, like hearing an ex-girlfriend died suddenly in a car crash. I don't know, there's probably a lot of people feeling odd emotions tonight.
— Jake Boggan, Hacker News comment on openai/math
Tags: openai, mathematics, deep-blue, llms, ai, generative-ai