OpenAI model disproves 80-year-old discrete geometry conjecture
an openai reasoning model solved the planar unit distance problem by disproving a decades-old conjecture on point placement.
openai revealed that a new general-purpose reasoning model autonomously solved the planar unit distance problem, a combinatorial geometry challenge standing for nearly 80 years. the ai disproved the central conjecture that rescaled square grids maximized unit-distance pairs, identifying an infinite family of examples that yield polynomial improvement. external mathematicians, including fields medalist tim gowers and number theorist arul shankar, verified the proof and authored a companion paper. this marks the first time a prominent open problem in mathematics has been solved by a general ai model rather than a math-specific system.