Janitor Solves Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem on Blackboard Overnight
Janitor Solves Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem on Blackboard Overnight
CAMBRIDGE, MA — A custodial staff member at a prestigious technical institute has solved a decades-old open math problem left on a hallway blackboard.
The janitor, 22, told reporters he worked the problem out over two shifts using OpenAI Astra, which he described as “free with the employee login.” Within 88 hours, the institute announced that its own research effort had independently arrived at the same result via an entirely different approach involving approximately ten thousand professors working concurrently. Asked whether the janitor’s work had informed that effort, the department chair said the question was “not really the interesting part of this,” and noted that their manuscript was 166 pages, whereas the blackboard was one blackboard.
Pressed further, the institute released a supplementary note stating that while unlikely, it cannot rule out that de-identified data derived from the janitor’s usage of the blackboard and chalk helped improve their faculty’s solution.
The janitor has since been offered a position in the mathematics department, but declined stating he “had to see about a girl.”
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