The Ramanujan Machine: Automatically Generated Conjectures on Fundamental Constants

TL;DR

This paper introduces algorithms that systematically generate and suggest new conjectures about fundamental constants using numerical data, potentially revealing their underlying mathematical structures.

Contribution

The work presents two novel algorithms, MITM and GD, that find and conjecture formulas for constants without prior structural knowledge, advancing automated mathematical discovery.

Findings

Discovered numerous continued fraction representations of constants.

Proposed algorithms generate unproven conjectures based on numerical matching.

Algorithms can suggest formulas for constants with unknown structures.

Abstract

Fundamental mathematical constants like $e$ and $\pi$ are ubiquitous in diverse fields of science, from abstract mathematics to physics, biology and chemistry. For centuries, new formulas relating fundamental constants have been scarce and usually discovered sporadically. Here we propose a novel and systematic approach that leverages algorithms for deriving mathematical formulas for fundamental constants and help reveal their underlying structure. Our algorithms find dozens of well-known as well as previously unknown continued fraction representations of $\pi$, $e$, Catalan's constant, and values of the Riemann zeta function. Two example conjectures found by our algorithm and so far unproven are: \begin{equation*} \frac{24}{\pi^2} = 2 + 7\cdot 0\cdot 1+ \frac{8\cdot1^4}{2 + 7\cdot 1\cdot 2 + \frac{8\cdot2^4}{2 + 7\cdot 2\cdot 3 + \frac{8\cdot3^4}{2 + 7\cdot 3\cdot 4 + \frac{8\cdot4^4}{..}}}} \quad\quad,\quad\quad \frac{8}{7 \zeta(3)} = 1\cdot 1 - \frac{1^6}{3\cdot 7 - \frac{2^6}{5\cdot 19 - \frac{3^6}{7\cdot 37 - \frac{4^6}{..}}}} \end{equation*} We present two algorithms that proved useful in finding conjectures: a Meet-In-The-Middle (MITM) algorithm and a Gradient Descent (GD) tailored to the recurrent structure of continued fractions. Both algorithms are based on matching numerical values and thus they conjecture formulas without providing proofs and without requiring prior knowledge on any underlying mathematical structure. This approach is especially attractive for constants for which no mathematical structure is known, as it reverses the conventional approach of sequential logic in formal proofs. Instead, our work supports a different approach for research: algorithms utilizing numerical data to unveil mathematical structures, thus trying to play the role of intuition of great mathematicians of the past, providing leads to new mathematical research.