Improved lower bound for the 11-dimensional kissing number
AlphaEvolve improved the best known configuration for the kissing number problem in 11 dimensions.
- Model
- AlphaEvolve (Gemini-based)
- Field
- Mathematics
- Date
- 2025-05-14
- Problem posed
- 1694 · open 331 yrs
Sources
Original work
Announcement
Media coverage
What was found
Part of a sweep across 50+ open problems in analysis, geometry, combinatorics and number theory. AlphaEvolve rediscovered state-of-the-art solutions in roughly 75% of cases and improved on the best known in about 20%. The kissing number problem asks how many non-overlapping unit spheres can touch a central one.
Novelty check
Kissing number bounds are well catalogued per dimension; the 11D improvement was checked against the standing record.
Caveats and known objections
A lower-bound improvement via explicit construction, not a resolution of the problem. The 20% improvement rate means most of the 50+ problems saw no advance.
The open problem
315951
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History of this entry
- CorrectedRecorded the MathDB record for this result as a registration.
- AddedEntered the registry graded Independently checked and Search scaffold.
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Community discussion
Graded independently checked for verification and search scaffold for autonomy. What these mean.
Cite this entry
whataifound.org. (2025). Improved lower bound for the 11-dimensional kissing number. whataifound.org: A Registry of AI Scientific and Mathematical Discoveries. https://whataifound.org/finding/2025-05-alphaevolve-kissingBibTeX
@misc{whataifound-googledeepmind-2025-kissing,
title = {Improved lower bound for the 11-dimensional kissing number},
author = {{whataifound.org}},
year = {2025},
howpublished = {whataifound.org: A Registry of AI Scientific and Mathematical Discoveries},
note = {Result by Google DeepMind. Verification: Independently checked. Autonomy: Search scaffold.},
url = {https://whataifound.org/finding/2025-05-alphaevolve-kissing}
}