An attempt to settle a decade-long argument over a controversial proof by mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki has seen a war of words on both sides, with Mochizuki dubbing the latest effort as akin to a “hallucination” produced by ChatGPT,
An attempt to fix problems with a controversial mathematical proof has itself become mired in controversy, in the latest twist in a saga that has been running for over a decade and has seen mathematicians trading unusually pointed barbs.
The story began in 2012, when Shinichi Mochizuki at Kyoto University, Japan, published a 500-page proof of a problem called the ABC conjecture. The conjecture concerns prime numbers involved in solutions to the equation a + b = c, and despite its seemingly simple form, it provides deep insights into the nature of numbers. Mochizuki published a series of papers claiming to have proved ABC using new mathematical tools he collectively called Inter-universal Teichmüller (IUT) theory, but many mathematicians found the initial proof baffling and incomprehensible.
While a small number of mathematicians have since accepted that Mochizuki’s papers prove the conjecture, other researchers say there are holes in his argument and it needs further work, dividing the mathematical community in two and prompting a prize of up to $1 million for a resolution to the quandary.
Now, Kirti Joshi at the University of Arizona has published a proposed proof that he says fixes the problems with IUT and proves the ABC conjecture. But Mochizuki and his supporters, as well as mathematicians who critiqued Mochizuki’s original papers, remain unconvinced, with Mochizuki declaring that Joshi’s proposal doesn’t contain “any meaningful mathematical content whatsoever”.
Central to Joshi’s work is an apparent problem, previously identified by Peter Scholze at the University of Bonn, Germany, and Jakob Stix at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, with a part of Mochizuki’s proof called Conjecture 3.12. The conjecture involves comparing two mathematical objects, which Scholze and Stix say Mochizuki did incorrectly. Joshi claims to have found a more satisfactory way to make the comparison.
Joshi also says that his theory goes beyond Mochizuki’s and establishes a “new and radical way of thinking about arithmetic of number fields”. The paper, which hasn’t been peer-reviewed, is the culmination of several smaller papers on ABC that Joshi has published over several years, describing them as a “Rosetta Stone” for understanding Mochizuki’s impenetrable maths.
Neither Joshi nor Mochizuki responded to a request for comment on this article, and, indeed, the two seem reluctant to communicate directly with each other. In his paper, Joshi says Mochizuki hasn’t responded to his emails, calling the situation “truly unfortunate”. And yet, several days after the paper was posted online, Mochizuki published a 10-page response, saying that Joshi’s work was “mathematically meaningless” and that it reminded him of “hallucinations produced by artificial intelligence algorithms, such as ChatGPT”.
Mathematicians who support Mochizuki’s original proof express a similar sentiment. “There is nothing to talk about, since his [Joshi’s] proof is totally flawed,” says Ivan Fesenko at Westlake University in China. “He has no expertise in IUT whatsoever. No experts in IUT, and the number is in two digits, takes his preprints seriously,” he says. “It won’t pass peer review.”
And Mochizuki’s critics also disagree with Joshi. “Unfortunately, this paper and its predecessors does not introduce any powerful mathematical technology, and falls far short of giving a proof of ABC,” says Scholze, who has emailed Joshi to discuss the work further. For now, the saga continues.
For more such insights, log into www.international-maths-challenge.com.
*Credit for article given to Alex Wilkins*