Shing-Tung Yau's new paper acknowledges GPT and Claude

What happened: A new paper involving Shing-Tung Yau thanks GPT 6 Astra and Claude Pro in its acknowledgements for help exploring proof strategies and calculations. The paper addresses a conjecture on positive sectional curvature for the 28 smooth seven-dimensional spheres. Key numbers: 28 seven-dimensional spheres, 27 of them exotic; the Why it matters: The paper claims to close the step from nonnegative to strictly positive curvature, a gap the content says has stood for over half a century. It also marks a shift from Yau's earlier statement that AI could not affect top mathematicians.

A new paper involving Shing-Tung Yau thanks GPT 6 Astra and Claude Pro in its acknowledgements for help exploring proof strategies and calculations. The paper addresses a conjecture on positive sectional curvature for the 28 smooth seven-dimensional spheres.

The paper claims to close the step from nonnegative to strictly positive curvature, a gap the content says has stood for over half a century. It also marks a shift from Yau's earlier statement that AI could not affect top mathematicians.