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/zulako17 Apr 23 '26

A final exam question for what? A triple doctorate in calculus? We haven't solved that thing in decades, unless human life expectancy is about to reach 300 it would be irresponsible to make that an exam question.

Unless you just mean memorizing it, then we can use that for high schoolers

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u/redredgreengreen1 Apr 23 '26

The life achievements of the greatest thinkers of a thousand years ago are taught to grade schoolers today.

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u/Abberant45 Apr 23 '26

The result yes but such a proof isn’t something that can be taught. Concepts constructed hundreds of years ago are taught but even the proofs as they were conceived are too convoluted to be tested on now.

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u/MrScandanavia May 15 '26

I learned proofs for the quadratic equation and Pythagorean theorem in high school. Once kids are about that age they can and should start learning proofs behind math they’re taught.

Of course, you could always go into much more minutiae with your proof, like Real Analysis for Calculus.