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The duo kept their program running in the background for over a decade. During that time, a couple of computers from their ragtag collection succumbed to overheating and even flames. “There was one that actually sent out sparks,” Brittenham said. “That was kind of fun.” (Those machines, he added, were “honorably retired.”)
Then, in the fall of 2024, a paper about a failed attempt to use machine learning to disprove the additivity conjecture caught Brittenham and Hermiller’s attention….
