Navier-Stokes Announcement • Hacker News Board

Re: Navier-Stokes Announcement

#31

Post by adastra22 » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:26 AM UTC

auggierose wrote: post #11

Legend2440 wrote: post #7

Their rules PDF says they won't accept any solution until at least two years after publication in a qualifying outlet. This allows time for the mathematical community to review and accept new results. As the OpenAI proof hasn't been officially published yet, the clock hasn't started ticking.

The Lean proof is published, you can download it. The clock definitely is ticking. Edit: Oh, didn't see the "qualifying outlet" condition. But Poincare was ever just put on arXiv, so arXiv must count as well.

Publish in academic language means accepted peer-reviewed paper.

Re: Navier-Stokes Announcement

#32

Post by seanhunter » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:34 AM UTC

baby wrote: post #10

Legend2440 wrote: post #7

Their rules PDF says they won't accept any solution until at least two years after publication in a qualifying outlet. This allows time for the mathematical community to review and accept new results. As the OpenAI proof hasn't been officially published yet, the clock hasn't started ticking.

It’s easy to verify the lean statement, you don’t need to read the proof. That is part of the breakthrough

You absolutely need to read the lean proof firstly to assess the correctness of the proposition it is proving (ie in this case that it is actually proving or otherwise the smoothness of navier-stokes in R^3 and not something else) and secondly to determine whether the proof is “honest” in the sense given here https://lean-lang.org/doc/reference/latest/ValidatingProofs/

Re: Navier-Stokes Announcement

#33

Post by gps372 » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:37 AM UTC

baby wrote: post #12

It feels like a nice post. It’s almost like we’re not supposed to celebrate the fact that mathematics is accelerating.

Agree! 'Problems' are getting solved and this needs to be celebrated. Wondering how this will discourage mathematicians at all, since now they have another tool to accelerate their research. Nothing is stopping them from using 'new technologies' or sticking a gun to their head to use the 'new technologies' either.

Re: Navier-Stokes Announcement

#34

Post by kaffekaka » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:50 AM UTC

gps372 wrote: post #33

baby wrote: post #12

It feels like a nice post. It’s almost like we’re not supposed to celebrate the fact that mathematics is accelerating.

Agree! 'Problems' are getting solved and this needs to be celebrated. Wondering how this will discourage mathematicians at all, since now they have another tool to accelerate their research. Nothing is stopping them from using 'new technologies' or sticking a gun to their head to use the 'new technologies' either.

You mean that every mathematician can assign ten thousands Astra bots and 20 million dollars in compute to their thesis problems now?

Re: Navier-Stokes Announcement

#35

Post by kaffekaka » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:52 AM UTC

noisy_boy wrote: post #29

ComplexSystems wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I found it refreshing to get away from all of the AI drama and just enjoy the advancement in math.

We should enjoy the advancement. I also think the AI companies solving this or such problems with rewards shouldn't get any cash - that's the least they can do for human advancement having stolen the entirety of human knowledge and continuing to swallow never before seen amount of energy.

FWIW I think OpenAI have stated they will not claim the award.

They did not do it for the money obviously, but for the PR, that much everyone must agree on.

Re: Navier-Stokes Announcement

#36

Post by gps372 » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:57 AM UTC

kaffekaka wrote: post #34

gps372 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree! 'Problems' are getting solved and this needs to be celebrated. Wondering how this will discourage mathematicians at all, since now they have another tool to accelerate their research. Nothing is stopping them from using 'new technologies' or sticking a gun to their head to use the 'new technologies' either.

You mean that every mathematician can assign ten thousands Astra bots and 20 million dollars in compute to their thesis problems now?

If it works (something they need to be convinced about), if it accelerate mathematics and solve complex problems for humanity, then why not?

Aren't they already using computers, mobiles, calculators, etc. already?

Re: Navier-Stokes Announcement

#37

Post by auggierose » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:57 AM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #31

auggierose wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Lean proof is published, you can download it. The clock definitely is ticking. Edit: Oh, didn't see the "qualifying outlet" condition. But Poincare was ever just put on arXiv, so arXiv must count as well.

Publish in academic language means accepted peer-reviewed paper.

Accepted by whom? Peer-reviewed by whom?

I guess these little questions are what this article is really about.

Re: Navier-Stokes Announcement

#38

Post by jtpmath » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 6:58 AM UTC

tristanj wrote: post #3

Smart move by them for waiting until the drama died down before making a completely neutral statement. The statement is so sterile they don't even mention who solved it. The word "OpenAI" doesn't appear at all.

[flagged]

Re: Navier-Stokes Announcement

#39

Post by jtpmath » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 7:00 AM UTC

tristanj wrote: post #27

ngruhn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or posting arXiv does not count The Poincaré conjecture guy also broke that rule. They wanted to give him the prize anyway but he refused. OpenAI announced they would also not claim the prize. Looks like no one wants this prize lol

You might be right. At this rate, if AI solves the remaining five problems, we're heading towards a hilarious situation where all the Millennium Problems are solved, but nobody wants to claim the prize money.

I did and was intending to claim the prize, that is why I worked with GPT-4 and GPT-5 to program the algorithms that lead to the breakthrough. You think NS is a surprise? Wait until you see that my NS counterexample was based on my RH disproof.

Re: Navier-Stokes Announcement

#40

Post by seanhunter » Sat, Sep 12, 2026, 7:01 AM UTC

tristanj wrote: post #27

ngruhn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or posting arXiv does not count The Poincaré conjecture guy also broke that rule. They wanted to give him the prize anyway but he refused. OpenAI announced they would also not claim the prize. Looks like no one wants this prize lol

You might be right. At this rate, if AI solves the remaining five problems, we're heading towards a hilarious situation where all the Millennium Problems are solved, but nobody wants to claim the prize money.

That’s a big if. In the maths community, there has been a feeling that Navier-Stokes was close to being solved for a while now. I don’t know of anyone credible who feels that way about the Riemann hypothesis.

Here’s what Terrence Tao had to say about it https://youtu.be/vuT-2_e4NHg

Edit to add: The fun part about the RH since people mentioned lean in a sibling thread is that in lean’s mathlib4 there is verified statement of the Riemann Hypothesis with a comment that says something like “instantiating an object of this type will lead to a prize of a million dollars”