# A 23-Year-Old With Zero Math Training Just Cracked a 60-Year Erdős Problem — In One ChatGPT Prompt **URL:** \ **Category:** News & Articles\ **Tags:** earn-money, tips-tricks, ai, news, think-differently\ **Created:** [May 17, 2026, 4:40pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/a-23-year-old-with-zero-math-training-just-cracked-a-60-year-erdos-problem-in-one-chatgpt-prompt/322108 "2026-05-17T16:40:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ze380y](https://onehack.st/user_avatar/onehack.st/ze380y/32/48760_2.png) [@Ze380y](https://onehack.st/u/Ze380y)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2026, 4:40pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/a-23-year-old-with-zero-math-training-just-cracked-a-60-year-erdos-problem-in-one-chatgpt-prompt/322108/1 "2026-05-17T16:40:26Z")
# 🧠 A 23-Year-Old With Zero Math Training Just Cracked a 60-Year Erdős Problem — In One ChatGPT Prompt _he literally said “i don’t even know what this problem is” — and Fields Medalist Terence Tao called it a new mathematical theory within 24 hours_ **The numbers: 1 prompt. 80 minutes of AI reasoning. 60 years of failed attempts by the world’s best mathematicians. 1 new theory born. The kid’s name is Liam Price and he calls his method “vibe maths.”** Since January 2026, [15 Erdős problems have gone from ‘open’ to ‘solved’](https://www.buildfastwithai.com/blogs/gpt-5-4-solved-a-60-year-math-problem-what-happened) — 11 of them crediting AI. That number would’ve been science fiction five years ago. The barrier between “amateur with wifi” and “world-class mathematician” just got thinner than a LaTeX page margin. ![Math](https://media.giphy.com/media/BmmfETghGOPrW/giphy.gif) * * * > **🧩 Dumb Mode Dictionary** > > | Term | What It Actually Means | > | --- | --- | > | **Erdős Problem** | A math puzzle posted by legendary mathematician Paul Erdős — there’s a whole [website full of unsolved ones](https://www.erdosproblems.com/) | > | **Primitive set** | A group of numbers where none of them can be evenly divided by any other number in the group | > | **Erdős sum** | A “score” you calculate for these special number groups — like a difficulty rating | > | **Conjecture** | A math guess that nobody’s been able to prove true OR false yet | > | **Vibe maths** | Just… asking AI to solve problems and seeing what sticks. No formal training needed | > | **GPT-5.4 Pro** | OpenAI’s latest reasoning model (the paid $200/month one) | > | **Markov chains** | A math trick where you predict next steps from current steps — like autocomplete but for equations | > | **von Mangoldt weights** | A 90-year-old formula that’s been sitting in a different part of math. Nobody thought to bring it here | > | **Lean** | A computer program that checks if a math proof is actually correct (no human bias) | > | **Fields Medal** | The Nobel Prize of math. Terence Tao has one. | > **📖 How a Monday Afternoon Changed Mathematics** > > Here’s what happened on April 13, 2026: > > - Liam Price, 23, no advanced math degree, opens ChatGPT > - He copy-pastes [Erdős Problem #1196](https://www.erdosproblems.com/) — a 1968 conjecture about the maximum “score” of primitive number sets > - He didn’t know it was famous. He didn’t know it was hard. He just… does this sometimes > - GPT-5.4 Pro spent **80 minutes reasoning** through it > - It produced a full proof using a method NO human mathematician had ever tried for this class of problem > - Price formatted it and posted it to the Erdős Problems forum > > His literal words when asked about the significance: **“I don’t even know what this problem is.”** > > absolute legend behavior. > **🔬 Why 60 Years of Experts Missed This** > > According to [Terence Tao](https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20260427-chatgpt-math-60-year-problem/) — one of the greatest living mathematicians: > > > “People did look at it, and the humans that looked at it just collectively made a slight wrong turn at move one.” > > The AI used **Markov chains combined with von Mangoldt weights** — a technique that existed for 90 years in a different branch of math. It was like the answer was sitting in a neighboring room and every human just kept walking past the door. > > Tao called it a _“meaningful contribution to the anatomy of integers that goes well beyond the solution of this particular Erdős problem”_ and extended it into the seed of a **new mathematical theory** within 24 hours. > > the AI didn’t just solve the problem. it accidentally opened a new field. > **🤝 The Human Part (Important)** > > Before we get too “AI replaces everything” — the experts weighed in: > > - Mathematician Jared Lichtman (who proved a related Erdős conjecture in 2022): _“The raw output of ChatGPT’s proof was actually quite poor. It required an expert to sift through.”_ > - The full verification, reformulation, and extension into theory = **human work** > - The proof has been formally verified in [Lean](https://leanprover-community.github.io/) (computer-checked) so it’s airtight > > So the recipe was: **amateur asks the right question → AI finds a weird angle → experts clean it up → new math is born.** > > That’s the real workflow. Not “AI does everything” — but AI as the creative spark nobody expected. > **📊 The Receipts** > > | Stat | Value | > | --- | --- | > | Solver’s age | 23 | > | Math degrees | 0 | > | Time AI spent reasoning | ~80 minutes | > | Years problem went unsolved | 60 (since 1968) | > | Cost of ChatGPT Pro subscription | $200/month | > | Erdős problems solved with AI since Jan 2026 | 11 out of 15 total | > | Time for Terence Tao to validate | \<24 hours | > | New mathematical theories spawned | 1 (and counting) | > **🌊 The 'Vibe Maths' Movement** > > Price and his collaborator Kevin Barreto (a 2nd-year Cambridge undergrad) started this trend late 2025: > > - They’d grab random problems from the [Erdős Problems website](https://www.erdosproblems.com/) > - Paste them into the FREE version of ChatGPT > - See what came back > - An AI researcher noticed and gifted them both ChatGPT Pro subscriptions > > They call it **“vibe maths”** — intuitive questioning, no formal method, just vibes and repeated attempts. The mathematical equivalent of “let me just try random stuff until something works.” > > And now they’re making history. * * * #### Cool. So the world’s hardest math problems are now speedruns for broke college kids with a $200 subscription. Now What the Hell Do We Do? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ![Use Case](https://media.giphy.com/media/xT9IgN8YKRhByRBzMI/giphy.gif) > **🕳️ The Bounty Hunter's Shortcut** > > There are math competitions and foundations that pay **actual cash** for solving open problems. The [Millennium Prize Problems](https://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems/) each carry a $1 million bounty. But there are dozens of smaller bounties ($500-$10,000) posted by mathematicians on various forums and conjecture boards. > > The play: Feed every known open problem with a posted bounty into AI reasoning models. You’re not doing math — you’re doing quality control on AI outputs and pattern-matching which answers look non-trivial enough to submit. > > 🧠 _Example:_ A 26-year-old data analyst in Portugal finds 3 open combinatorics problems on [MathOverflow](https://mathoverflow.net/) with informal bounties, feeds them to GPT-5.4 and Claude, gets a partial result on one, emails the problem’s author, splits credit on the resulting paper — gets $2,000 from a foundation + a co-author credit. > > > 📈 **Timeline:** First submission in 3 days. First actual payout in 4-8 weeks (peer review). This window narrows fast as more people catch on. > **🎣 The Proof-Cleaning Service** > > Here’s the thing — AI outputs are messy. Lichtman literally said the raw proof was “quite poor.” But cleaning up an AI-generated proof into publishable form? That’s a SKILL. And right now nobody’s selling it. > > Set up a service: researchers/amateurs who get interesting AI outputs but can’t formalize them pay you to turn garbage-tier LaTeX into submission-ready papers. You need intermediate math literacy, not genius. > > 🧠 _Example:_ A 28-year-old math tutor in Nigeria notices 4 people on the Erdős Problems forum posting AI-generated “solutions” that are clearly rough. She DMs each one offering cleanup for $300-$800 per paper. Gets 2 clients in week one. Charges $500, takes 6 hours per paper using [Lean](https://leanprover-community.github.io/) to check logic and [Overleaf](https://www.overleaf.com/) for formatting. > > > 📈 **Timeline:** First client in 5 days. Steady $2-4K/month within 6 weeks. Saturates when universities start doing this in-house (~6 months). > **📡 The Conjecture Radar Bot** > > There’s no single dashboard that tracks: which open problems exist + which ones AI models are closest to solving + which have bounties/prestige attached. Build it. > > Scrape [Erdős Problems](https://www.erdosproblems.com/), [Open Problem Garden](http://www.openproblemgarden.org/), [MathOverflow bounties](https://mathoverflow.net/), and the [Polymath Project](https://polymathprojects.org/). Cross-reference with public AI benchmark results to flag “ripe” problems. Sell early access to the list. > > 🧠 _Example:_ A 21-year-old CS student in Romania builds a Telegram bot that pings subscribers when a new problem appears that matches “low-complexity, high-reward” criteria. Charges $15/month. Gets 200 subscribers from math Twitter within 3 weeks. Revenue: $3,000/month for a bot that runs on a $5 VPS. > > > 📈 **Timeline:** MVP in 2 days (Python + scraping). First paying users in 10 days. Copycat bots appear in ~2 months, but first-mover keeps the community. > **🪟 The Academic Credit Arbitrage** > > Universities still haven’t figured out how to handle AI-assisted research. Right now, if you contribute to a solved conjecture — even as “the person who typed the prompt” — you can get co-author credit. Academic credit = future job offers, speaking gigs, PhD admission leverage. > > The play: Systematically collaborate with math undergrads who know how to verify but don’t have ChatGPT Pro ($200/month is expensive for students). You provide the compute, they provide the verification, you share credit. > > 🧠 _Example:_ A 24-year-old marketing guy in Indonesia DMs 15 math undergrads from UK/EU universities on Discord, offers them free GPT-5.4 access in exchange for co-authorship on any results. Within 2 months, one partnership produces a minor result on a graph theory conjecture. He lists “co-author, published mathematical research” on his LinkedIn. Gets recruited for a quant trading intern role paying $8K/month — zero math background, just the credit. > > > 📈 **Timeline:** Partnerships formed in 1 week. First usable output in 4-8 weeks. The “credential hack” pays off within 3 months. Closes when journals start requiring disclosure of who did what (probably 2027). > **🎰 The Vibe Math Content Machine** > > “Vibe maths” is a brand-new term that barely exists yet. The SEO opportunity is wide open. But don’t make a YouTube channel about it — too slow. Instead: become the definitive reference. > > Build the first [vibe maths glossary/playbook](https://www.erdosproblems.com/) site. Document every AI-solved problem, the prompt used, the model, the technique that worked. Researchers will link to you. Math students will bookmark you. You become the Wikipedia of AI-math before Wikipedia catches up. > > 🧠 _Example:_ A 19-year-old web dev in Morocco spins up a Notion-based wiki (free), documents the 15 AI-solved Erdős problems with links to original papers, tweets from Tao, and the exact prompts used. Shares it on [r/math](https://www.reddit.com/r/math/) and [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/). Gets 50K unique visitors in week one. Slaps on a $5/month “early access to new solutions” tier via [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/). 400 subscribers = $2,000/month passive. > > > 📈 **Timeline:** Site live in 1 day. Viral moment in 3-7 days (if you catch the news cycle). Revenue within 2 weeks. Defensible for 4-6 months before bigger players ([Brilliant.org](http://Brilliant.org), 3Blue1Brown) do it better. > **🛠️ Follow-Up Actions** > > | Want | Do | > | --- | --- | > | Try vibe maths yourself | Get [ChatGPT Pro](https://openai.com/chatgpt/pricing/) ($200/mo) or use free Claude/Gemini on easier problems from [Erdős Problems](https://www.erdosproblems.com/) | > | Learn to verify proofs | Install [Lean](https://leanprover-community.github.io/) and do the [Natural Number Game](https://adam.math.hhu.de/#/g/leanprover-community/NNG4) (free, takes a weekend) | > | Find open problems with bounties | Browse [MathOverflow](https://mathoverflow.net/) and [Open Problem Garden](http://www.openproblemgarden.org/) | > | Understand what Price actually solved | Read the [buildfastwithai breakdown](https://www.buildfastwithai.com/blogs/gpt-5-4-solved-a-60-year-math-problem-what-happened) | > | Connect with the vibe maths community | Search “vibe maths” + “Erdős” on Twitter/X, join [r/mathematics](https://www.reddit.com/r/mathematics/) | * * * **⚡ Quick Hits** | Want | Do | | --- | --- | | 🧠 Solve unsolved problems yourself | Feed problems from [erdosproblems.com](https://www.erdosproblems.com/) into GPT-5.4 Pro or Claude | | 💰 Find math bounties | Check [Clay Mathematics Institute](https://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems/) + smaller MathOverflow bounties | | 🔧 Verify AI proofs | Learn [Lean proof assistant](https://leanprover-community.github.io/) — free, open source | | 📖 Understand the backstory | Read [Scientific American’s full piece](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/amateur-armed-with-chatgpt-vibe-maths-a-60-year-old-problem/) | | 🎯 Start with easy mode | Try the [Natural Number Game](https://adam.math.hhu.de/#/g/leanprover-community/NNG4) to learn formal proof basics | * * * _a 23-year-old who “doesn’t even know what the problem is” just outperformed 60 years of PhDs by typing one sentence into a chatbot. the excuse era is over. vibe math is real and the universe is cooked._