---
id: "2025-11-05-alphaevolve-tao-67-problems"
url: "https://postcutoff.com/e/2025-11-05-alphaevolve-tao-67-problems/"
as_of: "2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00"
date: "2025-11-05"
date_precision: day
category: science
importance: 3
confidence: high
status: [Result confirmed]
verification: Preprint only
sources: 3
editor: human editor
human_review: null
version: "2026-10-19"
---

As of: 2026-11-13 13:49 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/e/2025-11-05-alphaevolve-tao-67-problems/

# Tao, Gómez-Serrano, Georgiev and Wagner test AlphaEvolve on 67 maths problems

In 'Mathematical exploration and discovery at scale' (arXiv 2511.02864), Bogdan Georgiev, Javier Gómez-Serrano, Terence Tao and Adam Zsolt Wagner ran AlphaEvolve on 67 problems in analysis, combinatorics, geometry and number theory. It rediscovered the best known constructions in most cases and improved several. Some runs were chained with Deep Think and AlphaProof to produce proofs.

## Key facts
- 67 problems; a public repository with per-problem notebooks
- Rediscovered state-of-the-art constructions in most cases and improved on several
- Pipeline: AlphaEvolve (constructions) → Deep Think (informal proof) → AlphaProof (formal proof) in some cases
- Tao blog post, 5 Nov 2025

## What happened

Leading mathematicians stress-tested AlphaEvolve on a large, varied problem set and published both the successes and the failures.

## Why it matters

Coming from Tao, it gave the maths community a credible, balanced picture of what AI search could do, just before the 2026 surge.

## Your AI and this story

- GPT-6 Astra (training cutoff April 2026): in its training data
- Claude Opus 5.5 (training cutoff June 2026): in its training data
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen (training cutoff March 2026): in its training data
- Grok 4.7 (training cutoff May 2026): in its training data

## Sources

1. [Mathematical exploration and discovery at scale (arXiv 2511.02864)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.02864) (arxiv.org, paper)
2. [GitHub: alphaevolve_repository_of_problems](https://github.com/google-deepmind/alphaevolve_repository_of_problems) (github.com, code)
3. [Terence Tao: Mathematical exploration and discovery at scale](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2025/11/05/mathematical-exploration-and-discovery-at-scale/) (terrytao.wordpress.com, discussion)

## Changes

- 2026-10-19: Verification made precise
- 2026-09-29 (filed): Created

## Related

- 2025-05-14: [AlphaEvolve: Gemini-powered agent discovers new algorithms](https://postcutoff.com/e/2025-05-14-alphaevolve/index.md)
- 2021-04-29: [Adam Zsolt Wagner uses reinforcement learning to find counterexamples to open graph-theory conjectures](https://postcutoff.com/e/2021-04-29-wagner-rl-counterexamples/index.md)
- People: [Terence Tao](https://postcutoff.com/person/terence-tao/)