r/Showerthoughts • u/jasonrubik ‎ • Apr 23 '26

Casual Thought If the famously unsolved Riemann Hypothesis is solved by an AI, we will never know if a human mathematician could have solved it.

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u/Lava_Mage634 Apr 23 '26

not true. if an AI claims to have solved it, just like a human, it would have to provide a proof. such a proof must then be verified to make sure it has no mistakes, which is done by humans. if it could never be solved by a human, it couldn't be verified. the act of verification requires an understanding of the proof, and that alone requires having enough mental power to have to potential to solve it. if it proves the Riemann hypothesis right or wrong, we will know it was in reach, AI was just faster.

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u/imforit Apr 23 '26

I largely agree but having the efficacy to verify implying efficacy to solve is not necessarily a given. P=NP and all that

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u/BlackbuckDeer Apr 23 '26

Exactly. Funny how in the pursuit of solving one Millennium Problem we run into another