World
AI unlocks hidden theorems in notebooks written by mathematician Kurt Gödel
Artificial intelligence has helped researchers decode 1,009 pages of handwritten notes by Kurt Gödel, revealing hundreds of previously unknown proved theorems.
Kurt Gödel left tens of thousands of pages of unpublished work after transforming mathematics in the 1930s. Since 2017, a project at Helsinki University led by Jan von Plato has worked to understand 16 notebooks containing 1,009 pages of text written in an obsolete German shorthand called Gabelsberger. Progress was slow until the AI model Claude was enlisted to help process transcriptions and related materials. Within a couple of days, Claude provided a comprehensive explanation that revealed Gödel had proved hundreds of unknown theorems and anticipated results from the 1970s and 1980s.
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