Lü, Wang & Wu claim µ(p+2) = o(π(x)), a model case of the parity problem open since at least 1989, building on an OpenAI preprint with ChatGPT’s help
Awaiting review
Importance: major (4 of 5)The takeaway
Three analytic number theorists at Shandong University claim the Möbius function cancels on shifted primes p + 2, a folklore case of the Hardy–Littlewood–Chowla conjecture and a textbook example of the sieve parity barrier. Their method follows an OpenAI Math Release preprint, which ChatGPT helped them understand.
Status
- Claim
Awaiting review
- Our reporting
- Medium confidence
- Verification
- Preprint only
- Importance
- Major (4 of 5)
- Last verified
- 15 October 2026
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None of these four assistants can know about it. The closest, Claude Opus 5.5, stops 106 days before it.
Key facts
- Paper: ‘On the Hardy–Littlewood–Chowla conjecture’, arXiv 2610.20242 (math.NT, 14 Oct 2026, 52 pages)
- Theorem 1: Σ_{p≤x} µ(p+2) = o(π(x)), equivalently Σ_{n≤x} Λ(n)µ(n+2) = o(x). The shift is fixed at 2 ‘for simplicity’
- Theorem 2: #{p ≤ x : µ(p+2) = κ} = (A₂/2 + o(1))π(x) for κ = ±1, with A₂ = ∏_{p>2}(1 − 1/(p(p−1))); this addresses the question in Sarnak’s AIM problem 5.2 about both sign patterns along shifted primes
- Before: only averaged versions (Lichtman 2022; Lichtman–Teräväinen) or results conditional on Siegel zeros (Tao–Teräväinen 2022)
- AI statement (verbatim): ‘The authors would like to thank ChatGPT for its assistance in understanding the methods in [11], and in establishing the Appendix A. The authors also thank ChatGPT for helping to check the manuscript.’
- Reference [11] is OpenAI, ‘The Poisson–Dirichlet law for prime predecessors’ (OpenAI Math Release, 24 Sep 2026 version), family 011 of the 6 Oct release, which claims the Ford–Konyagin–Luca conjecture. Appendix A reproves its Lemma 3.3 (a root-counting estimate) with an explicit error term ‘so that this input can be verified within the present paper’
- Related OpenAI claim in the same family: infinitely many primes p with µ(p−1) = 1 (‘Prime Predecessors with an Even Number of Prime Factors’, 17 Sep 2026)
What happened
Chowla’s conjecture predicts that the Möbius function µ has no correlation with its own shifts. The Hardy–Littlewood conjecture predicts how often prime patterns occur. The mixed Hardy–Littlewood–Chowla conjecture combines the two. Its simplest case, Σ_{p≤x} µ(p+h) = o(π(x)), says that p + h is as likely to have an even as an odd number of prime factors when p runs over the primes. The paper says this “is a folklore conjecture and a well-known model case for the parity problem in sieve theory”, in print at least since Hildebrand (1989). Earlier results covered only averages over the shift h (Lichtman; Lichtman–Teräväinen) or assumed that Siegel zeros exist (Tao–Teräväinen).
Lü, Wang and Wu claim the case h = 2 unconditionally (arXiv 2610.202421). They prove it with Type I/Type II estimates and a “parity conjugacy” bijection (Section 4). Their root-counting input comes from OpenAI’s preprint “The Poisson–Dirichlet law for prime predecessors”. To make the paper self-contained, they reprove that lemma in Appendix A.
AI statement: “The authors would like to thank ChatGPT for its assistance in understanding the methods in [11], and in establishing the Appendix A. The authors also thank ChatGPT for helping to check the manuscript.”
No Hacker News thread was found on 15 Oct (Algolia). X was not searched directly. No expert reaction was found yet.
Why it matters
If the proof holds, it gets past the parity barrier in one of the problem’s simplest standard test cases. It also shows a route that is becoming common: human experts take the method of a machine-written OpenAI preprint, have a chatbot explain it, and turn it into a result OpenAI did not claim.
What is disputed or not yet verified
| Verification | Unrefereed preprint; no Lean formalization |
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Sources
3 sources from 3 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
3 sources: 3 primary
Primary
Changes
- Filed from the arXiv PDF and the openai/math CONTENTS.md