Erdős Problem Solvers Win Justin Sun Prize for Human-AI Proofs

Three researchers have been named the latest winners of the Justin Sun Prize: Wouter van Doorn, an independent researcher; Quanyu Tang, a mathematics Ph.D. student; and Yanyang Li, a mathematics researcher at Southeast University in Nanjing. Their work covers six Erdős problems.

Van Doorn, a self-taught number theorist, started his research as an undergraduate in 2010 and kept up collaborations and publications after leaving academia with a master’s degree. Tang (汤泉宇), a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Science and Technology of China, works in number theory, combinatorics, and AI-assisted math discovery.

Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős posed or popularized the mathematical questions known as Erdős problems, which involve numbers, patterns, and other structures. Though often easy to describe, they are hard to resolve and have influenced number theory and combinatorics; some remain unsolved for decades. The catalog of such problems, curated by Thomas Bloom of the University of Manchester, contains over 1200 problems.

Together with Li, van Doorn and Tang solved Erdős Problem #650, which asks exactly how many integers can always be paired with distinct multiples inside a given interval. Van Doorn separately created computer-verifiable proofs in Lean, a tool for checking mathematical reasoning, for three other problems: #369 (about consecutive integers with restricted prime factors), #457 (whether a short block of consecutive integers can include every prime in a specific range), and #469 (whether reciprocals of a certain class of numbers—expressible as sums of divisors—sum to a finite total).

Tang independently solved #1044, setting a precise lower bound on the lengths of boundaries of polynomial-defined regions. He also contributed with Li to a larger team's solution for #1196, which bounds weighted sums over integer sets where no element divides another.

The #650 solution illustrates how human insight and artificial intelligence can work together. ChatGPT assisted in forming the proof approach, and Aristotle, an AI reasoning system, fixed a gap during the Lean formalization. Afterwards, the researchers simplified the reasoning and wrote the final proofs and explanation.

“This experience taught me how public feedback can sharpen a research question, and how AI-assisted discovery can combine mathematical judgment, collaboration and rigorous verification,” Tang said.

The prizes are the first formally awarded by the program, highlighting not only mathematical breakthroughs but also the effort to make proofs independently verifiable. Details about the prize, its list of problems, and the winners' contributions can be found in the public GitHub repository.

Prizes will be paid out in either USDT on TRON (TRC-20) or USDC on Ethereum (ERC-20), as chosen by the recipient.

About the Office of Justin Sun

The Office of Justin Sun manages Sun's worldwide business, charitable, and public projects in technology, blockchain, AI, scientific research, investment, art, and space exploration.

Sun serves as Grenada's ambassador and former permanent representative to the WTO and is the founder of TRON. The TRON blockchain, described as the leading platform for stablecoins, has handled over $13 trillion in volume since launch. In emerging economies, users depend on USDT on TRON to participate in global finance.

A former protégé of Alibaba's Jack Ma, Sun has earned global recognition for his digital asset work, including a Forbes cover story in April 2025 and several Forbes 30 Under 30 listings. He flew on Blue Origin's NS-34 mission in August 2025, becoming the 712th person to reach space. His interests extend to tech, investing, charity, art, games, and space.

About Justin Sun Prize

The Justin Sun Prize, created by Sun, aims to foster progress in mathematics, formal verification, and AI-driven scientific discovery. It operates on a decentralized model, with the judgment based solely on the proof's strength, rigor, and verifiability rather than the submitter's status.

Sun set up the prize under his own name as a lasting pledge to channel wealth generated by math and tech back into mathematics. Its legacy is meant to be the recognized work and laureates whose findings endure. The prize connects well-defined math problems to machine-checkable proofs, guided by openness, public benefit, and open-source principles.