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Re: Could AlphaEvolve find the sixth busy beaver ?

From Mild Shock <janburse@fastmail.fm>
Newsgroups comp.lang.prolog, sci.logic, sci.math
Subject Re: Could AlphaEvolve find the sixth busy beaver ?
Date 2025-12-02 00:14 +0100
Message-ID <10gl7ga$u4cc$1@solani.org> (permalink)
References <10ghdp5$tg19$1@solani.org> <10gl1cc$1nhqt$1@dont-email.me>

Cross-posted to 3 groups.

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Hi,

Meanwhile I have found some papers where some
earlier lemmas are proved, that didn't make it
into the Coq proof. So I am not sure

whether Coq is the first. Seems there are
different proofs possible. But I didn't spend
enough time on the matter, to explain

details. Still in the collection phase.

Sorry that I am not an excellent help here.

Bye

Jeff Barnett schrieb:
> On 11/30/2025 5:36 AM, Mild Shock wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> What we thought:
>>
>> Prediction 5 . It will never be proved that
>> Σ(5) = 4,098 and S(5) = 47,176,870.
>> -- Allen H. Brady, 1990  .
>>
>> How it started:
>>
>> To investigate AlphaEvolve’s breadth, we applied
>> the system to over 50 open problems in mathematical
>> analysis, geometry, combinatorics and number theory.
>> The system’s flexibility enabled us to set up most
>> experiments in a matter of hours. In roughly 75% of
>> cases, it rediscovered state-of-the-art solutions, to
>> the best of our knowledge.
>> https://deepmind.google/blog/alphaevolve-a-gemini-powered-coding-agent- for-designing-advanced-algorithms/ 
>>
>>
>> How its going:
>>
>> We prove that S(5) = 47, 176, 870 using the Coq proof
>> assistant. The Busy Beaver value S(n) is the maximum
>> number of steps that an n-state 2-symbol Turing machine
>> can perform from the all-zero tape before halting, and
>> S was historically introduced by Tibor Radó in 1962 as
>> one of the simplest examples of an uncomputable function.
>> The proof enumerates 181,385,789 Turing machines with 5
>> states and, for each machine, decides whether it halts or
>> not. Our result marks the first determination of a new
>> Busy Beaver value in over 40 years and the first Busy
>> Beaver value ever to be formally verified, attesting to the
>> effectiveness of massively collaborative online research
>> https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.12337
>>
>> They claim not having used much AI. But could for
>> example AlphaEvolve do it somehow nevertheless, more or
>> less autonomously, and find the sixth busy beaver?
> I'm fascinated by this result and I'd appreciate it if you could 
> elaborate more. Is the problem presented to the automation:
> 
>   1. Prove "S(5) = 47,176,870" along with a 'def' of S?
>   2. Enumerate & check behavior or 47,176,870 machines?
>   3. Like 2 above but supplied with lemmas such as prove this case halts
>      implies a large number of other cases halt faster?
>   4. Like 3 above but lemmas discovered, perhaps with 'encouragement'?
>   5. other approaches or other chore splits between man and machine?
>   6. etc?
> 
> I think what I'm asking is for the work flow that led to the result.

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Thread

Could AlphaEvolve find the sixth busy beaver ? Mild Shock <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2025-11-30 13:36 +0100
  An old Busy Beaver ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) (Re: Could AlphaEvolve find the sixth busy beaver ?) Mild Shock <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2025-11-30 13:56 +0100
  Re: Could AlphaEvolve find the sixth busy beaver ? Jeff Barnett <jbb@notatt.com> - 2025-12-01 14:29 -0700
    Re: Could AlphaEvolve find the sixth busy beaver ? Mild Shock <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2025-12-02 00:14 +0100
      FYI: The Busy Beaver Frontier / Scott Aaronson (Was: Could AlphaEvolve find the sixth busy beaver ?) Mild Shock <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2025-12-02 00:17 +0100
        2024 claim of BB(5) (Was: FYI: The Busy Beaver Frontier / Scott Aaronson ) Mild Shock <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2025-12-02 00:22 +0100

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