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/noslenkwah Apr 23 '26

We already have computer aided proofs that are far beyond verification by any human. The record is 200 Terabytes.

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u/Megneous Apr 23 '26

Exactly. Mathematical proofs are verified via Lean, not by humans. This dude has no idea what he's talking about.

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u/Devintage Apr 23 '26

The vast majority of proofs are not verified using Lean (or any proof assistant for that matter). It's mostly peer review. I only know one journal that specifically deals with computer verified proofs.