A survey of research in automated mathematical conjecture-making
Claire Larson · DIMACS series in discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science · 2007
The first attempt at automating mathematical conjecture-making appeared in the late-1950s. It was not until the mid-1980s though that a program produced statements of interest to research mathematicians and actually contributed to the advancement of mathematics. A central and important idea underlying this program is the Principle of the Strongest Conjecture: make the strongest conjecture for which no counterexample is known. These two programs as well as other attempts to automate mathematical conjecture-making are surveyed—the success of a conjecture-making program, it is found, correlates strongly whether the program is designed to produce statements that are relevant to answering or advancing our mathematical questions.