“SOMETIMES PEOPLE have the wrong idea of maths and think that it will be overtake(超越；取代)n by computers,” said the mathematician Alain Connes in 2000. He was describing why a team of esteemed mathematicians were offering $1m rewards for solutions to seven intractable(棘手的；难解的) mathematical conundrums. These Millennium Prize problems, said Dr Connes, “are totally inaccessible(无法企及的；难以理解的) to computers”.
“人们有时对数学抱有错误的看法，以为计算机终将取代它。”数学家阿兰·孔涅在 2000 年如是说。他当时正在解释，为什么一群德高望重的数学家要悬赏 100 万美元，征集七道棘手数学难题的解答。孔涅博士说，这些“千禧年大奖难题”“对计算机来说完全无从下手”。
But computers got better. In early September OpenAI, an American firm, claim(宣称；声称)ed one of its internal AI models had solved a Millennium Prize problem: the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem, which relates to the motion of fluids. It was only the second of the lot to be conquered and the first to fall to(被攻克；落入……之手) a machine. Mathematicians had been wrestling with this one for at least a century. The AI solved it in 88 hours.
但计算机变强了。9 月初，美国公司 OpenAI 宣称，其内部的一款 AI 模型解决了一道千禧年大奖难题：纳维-斯托克斯存在性与光滑性问题，该问题与流体的运动有关。这是七道题中第二道被攻克的，也是第一道败在机器手下的。数学家们为它苦苦挣扎了至少一个世纪，而 AI 只用了 88 小时。
Then came what Álvaro Lozano-Robledo, a mathematician at the University of Connecticut, has called “possibly the single most important day in the history of mathematics thus far”.(接着到来的，是康涅狄格大学数学家阿尔瓦罗·洛萨诺-罗夫莱多所称的“或许是迄今为止数学史上最重要的一天”。) On October 6th OpenAI released a torrent(洪流；大量涌现) of 719 papers detailing solutions the same model had found to at least 372 other long-standing(长期存在的；由来已久的) open problems. No field of research has ever experienced an event like it.
接着到来的，是康涅狄格大学数学家阿尔瓦罗·洛萨诺-罗夫莱多所称的“或许是迄今为止数学史上最重要的一天”。10 月 6 日，OpenAI 一口气发布了 719 篇论文，详细记录了同一模型为至少 372 个长期悬而未决的开放问题找到的解答。此前从未有任何研究领域经历过这样的事件。
