{ "schemaVersion": "atlas-0.1.0", "asOf": "2026-10-30", "name": "Still Open", "tagline": "The future, in progress", "coverageNote": "Exhibits marked under-investigation have no lights and no glyph until two editors agree on them. Portraits are placeholders until the depiction pipeline delivers approved, rights-checked images; living people are never generated.", "lightKey": { "know": "Do we understand it well enough to act?", "can": "Does a working solution exist at any scale?", "do": "Is it reaching the people and places that need it?", "keep": "Is the gain being held?" }, "stateKey": { "settled": "full fill", "partial": "half fill", "not-yet": "outline", "contested": "hatched", "at-risk": "hatched", "regressing": "full fill with a down arrow", "na": "not applicable", "unassessed": "not yet assessed" }, "halls": [ { "id": "health", "number": "01", "title": "Health & Medicine", "short": "Diseases, conditions, and the systems that deliver care.", "wallText": "Most exhibits in this hall are stuck on delivering or on keeping, not on knowing. That is the single most common surprise for visitors: the science is often decades old and the gap is money, logistics and attention.", "plate": "health" }, { "id": "food-water", "number": "02", "title": "Food, Water & Living Conditions", "short": "Hunger, safe water, sanitation, shelter.", "wallText": "Under construction. The first exhibit here will be safely managed drinking water.", "plate": "health" }, { "id": "energy", "number": "03", "title": "Energy & Resources", "short": "Clean power, firm power, and the materials they need.", "wallText": "The physics is settled and the components exist. The open questions are firm power at scale, and the permitting, grids and finance that turn cheap generation into reliable supply.", "plate": "energy" }, { "id": "climate", "number": "04", "title": "Climate & Nature", "short": "Warming, heat, methane, ecosystems.", "wallText": "Under construction. The first exhibits here will be methane and heat mortality.", "plate": "energy" }, { "id": "peace", "number": "05", "title": "Peace & Society", "short": "War, hatred, and the institutions that hold them back.", "wallText": "Progress here has a sign, and the site shows it when it is negative. Measurement is contested, interventions have social-science-grade evidence, and the gains are norms and institutions that decay without upkeep.", "plate": "peace" }, { "id": "poverty", "number": "06", "title": "Poverty & Development", "short": "The master variable behind most delivery failures.", "wallText": "Under construction. Poverty appears as a shared barrier on exhibits in other halls before it gets exhibits of its own.", "plate": "peace" }, { "id": "risks", "number": "07", "title": "Catastrophic Risks", "short": "Pandemics, nuclear weapons, misuse of AI, security that never stays fixed.", "wallText": "A site that tracks AI's contributions needs a place for AI as a risk, or it reads as advertising. This hall is under construction; its first exhibit is pandemic preparedness.", "plate": "frontiers" }, { "id": "frontiers", "number": "08", "title": "Frontiers of Understanding", "short": "Open questions in mathematics, physics, biology and computing.", "wallText": "Questions are not problems. A question is resolved once and stays resolved; it needs no practical justification to be here, and the site does not invent one. This is also where most AI claims of 2025–26 live, and where the claims desk does most of its work.", "plate": "frontiers" } ], "sources": [ { "id": "who-tb-2025", "title": "Global Tuberculosis Report 2025", "url": "https://www.who.int/teams/global-programme-on-tuberculosis-and-lung-health/tb-reports", "publisher": "World Health Organization", "kind": "institutional_report", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "who-cad-2025", "title": "Use of computer-aided detection software for tuberculosis screening: WHO policy statement", "url": "https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240110373", "publisher": "World Health Organization", "kind": "institutional_reference", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "carter-gw-2025", "title": "Guinea Worm Disease Reaches All-Time Low: Only 10 Human Cases Reported in 2025", "url": "https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/2026/guinea-worm-worldwide-cases-2025.html", "publisher": "The Carter Center", "kind": "institutional_announcement", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "insilico-p3-2026", "title": "Insilico Medicine doses first patient in GENESIS-IPF-3", "url": "https://insilico.com/news/isn1009261-insilico-medicine-doses-first-patient-genesis-ipf-3", "publisher": "Insilico Medicine", "kind": "researcher_announcement", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "llnl-nif", "title": "Achieving Fusion Ignition — How ICF Works", "url": "https://lasers.llnl.gov/science/icf/how-icf-works", "publisher": "Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory", "kind": "institutional_reference", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "iter-baseline-2024", "title": "ITER baseline press conference summary, July 2024", "url": "https://iter.org/sites/default/files/media/2024-07/baseline_press_conference_summary_july-2024_b.pdf", "publisher": "ITER Organization", "kind": "institutional_reference", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "owid-lowcarbon", "title": "Share of electricity generated by low-carbon sources (Ember; Energy Institute)", "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-low-carbon", "publisher": "Our World in Data", "kind": "dataset", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "ember-ger-2026", "title": "Global Electricity Review 2026 (coverage: renewables overtake coal)", "url": "https://www.downtoearth.org.in/energy/clean-energy-meets-entire-global-demand-growth-as-renewables-overtake-coal-ember-report", "publisher": "Down To Earth, reporting Ember", "kind": "press", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "adl-audit-2025", "title": "2025 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents", "url": "https://www.adl.org/resources/report/2025-audit-antisemitic-incidents", "publisher": "Anti-Defamation League", "kind": "institutional_report", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "ucdp-2026", "title": "UCDP: record number of conflicts between states", "url": "https://www.uu.se/en/press/press-releases/2026/2026-06-09-ucdp-record-number-of-conflicts-between-states", "publisher": "Uppsala University", "kind": "institutional_announcement", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "prio-trends-2026", "title": "Conflict Trends: A Global Overview, 1946–2025", "url": "https://www.prio.org/resolve/PrioPublication/d81ccf0a-03e0-4579-8dd2-b0b2fe845d60", "publisher": "Peace Research Institute Oslo", "kind": "institutional_report", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "platt-trudgian-2021", "title": "The Riemann hypothesis is true up to 3·10^12", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1112/blms.12460", "publisher": "Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society", "kind": "peer_reviewed_paper", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "tao-ai-erdos-wiki", "title": "AI contributions to Erdős problems", "url": "https://github.com/teorth/erdosproblems/wiki/AI-contributions-to-Erd%C5%91s-problems", "publisher": "Terence Tao (community wiki)", "kind": "community_reference", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "erdos-728-writeup", "title": "Resolution of Erdős Problem #728: a writeup of Aristotle's Lean proof", "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.07421", "publisher": "arXiv", "kind": "preprint", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "openai-unit-distance-2026", "title": "An OpenAI model has disproved a central conjecture in discrete geometry", "url": "https://openai.com/index/model-disproves-discrete-geometry-conjecture/", "publisher": "OpenAI", "kind": "researcher_announcement", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "quanta-erdos-2026", "title": "Why the Legendary Erdős Problems Are Falling to AI", "url": "https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-the-legendary-erdos-problems-are-falling-to-ai-20260803/", "publisher": "Quanta Magazine", "kind": "press", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "alphaproof-nexus-coverage", "title": "DeepMind's AlphaProof Nexus solves 9 of 353 Erdős problems (coverage of the Science paper, 8 Oct 2026)", "url": "https://fourweekmba.com/ai-deepminds-alphaproof-nexus-solves-9-of-353-erdos-problems/", "publisher": "FourWeekMBA", "kind": "press", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "openai-oct-2026-qz", "title": "OpenAI said its AI cracked major problems in math, computing, and physics", "url": "https://qz.com/openai-ai-discoveries-math-computer-science-physics-102726", "publisher": "Quartz", "kind": "press", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "openai-oct-2026-forklog", "title": "OpenAI says its AI refuted the Exponential Time Hypothesis", "url": "https://forklog.com/en/openai-says-its-ai-refuted-the-exponential-time-hypothesis/", "publisher": "ForkLog", "kind": "press", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "lean-sorry-2026", "title": "Using Aristotle API for AI-assisted theorem proving in Lean 4: a formalisation case study", "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.20120", "publisher": "arXiv", "kind": "preprint", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "epoch-frontiermath-erdos", "title": "FrontierMath Erdős", "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25050", "publisher": "Epoch AI / arXiv", "kind": "preprint", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "gpt5-science-2025", "title": "Early science acceleration experiments with GPT-5", "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.16072", "publisher": "arXiv", "kind": "preprint", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "eweek-erdos-2025", "title": "GPT-5's Math 'Breakthrough' Gets F-Minus for Hype", "url": "https://www.eweek.com/news/openai-math-hype/", "publisher": "eWeek", "kind": "press", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "alphaevolve-rational", "title": "A non-commutative algorithm for multiplying 4×4 matrices using 48 non-complex multiplications (review)", "url": "https://www.themoonlight.io/fr/review/a-non-commutative-algorithm-for-multiplying-4x4-matrices-using-48-non-complex-multiplications", "publisher": "Moonlight (paper review)", "kind": "press", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "deepmind-imo-2025", "title": "Advanced version of Gemini with Deep Think officially achieves gold-medal standard at the IMO", "url": "https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/advanced-version-of-gemini-with-deep-think-officially-achieves-gold-medal-standard-at-the-international-mathematical-olympiad/", "publisher": "Google DeepMind", "kind": "researcher_announcement", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "willison-imo-2025", "title": "Gemini Deep Think IMO gold (notes on official vs self-graded results)", "url": "https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/21/gemini-imo/", "publisher": "Simon Willison", "kind": "press", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "singularities-2025", "title": "Discovery of Unstable Singularities", "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.14185", "publisher": "arXiv", "kind": "preprint", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "nobel-chem-2024", "title": "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 — press release", "url": "https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2024/press-release/", "publisher": "The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences", "kind": "institutional_announcement", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "doe-arl", "title": "Adoption Readiness Levels (ARL) Framework", "url": "https://www.energy.gov/technologycommercialization/adoption-readiness-levels-arl-framework", "publisher": "U.S. Department of Energy", "kind": "institutional_reference", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "ihra-definition", "title": "Working definition of antisemitism", "url": "https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism", "publisher": "International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance", "kind": "institutional_reference", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "jda-2021", "title": "The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism", "url": "https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/", "publisher": "Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism", "kind": "institutional_reference", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "osce-hatecrime", "title": "ODIHR hate crime reporting", "url": "https://hatecrime.osce.org/", "publisher": "OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights", "kind": "dataset", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "pettigrew-tropp-2006", "title": "A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.5.751", "publisher": "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology", "kind": "peer_reviewed_paper", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "roberts-2021", "title": "Common pitfalls and recommendations for using machine learning to detect and prognosticate for COVID-19 using chest radiographs and CT scans", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-021-00307-0", "publisher": "Nature Machine Intelligence", "kind": "peer_reviewed_paper", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "erdosproblems-site", "title": "Erdős Problems database", "url": "https://www.erdosproblems.com/", "publisher": "Thomas Bloom", "kind": "community_reference", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-28" }, { "id": "cdc-measles", "title": "Measles cases and outbreaks (United States)", "url": "https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html", "publisher": "U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention", "kind": "dataset", "reviewedAt": null, "note": "Not yet re-checked by this catalog; figures from it are not shown until it is." }, { "id": "gpei", "title": "Global Polio Eradication Initiative", "url": "https://polioeradication.org/", "publisher": "GPEI", "kind": "institutional_reference", "reviewedAt": null, "note": "Not yet re-checked by this catalog; figures from it are not shown until it is." }, { "id": "who-smallpox", "title": "Smallpox", "url": "https://www.who.int/health-topics/smallpox", "publisher": "World Health Organization", "kind": "institutional_reference", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "who-emro-polio", "title": "Polio eradication — wild poliovirus cases (Afghanistan and Pakistan)", "url": "https://www.emro.who.int/polio-eradication/index.html", "publisher": "WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean", "kind": "dataset", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "epinews-polio-2026", "title": "Polio cases in Afghanistan rise to six in 2026 as two new cases confirmed (citing WHO)", "url": "https://epinews.emphnet.net/en/news/polio-cases-in-afghanistan-rise-to-six-in-2026-as-two-new-cases-confirmed", "publisher": "EpiNews / Ariana News", "kind": "press", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "contagion-measles-2026", "title": "Measles Update: September 25, 2026 (CDC data as of 24 September 2026)", "url": "https://www.contagionlive.com/view/measles-update-september-25-2026", "publisher": "Contagion Live", "kind": "press", "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" } ], "exhibits": [ { "id": "tuberculosis", "hallId": "health", "alsoIn": [ "poverty" ], "title": "Tuberculosis", "kind": "problem", "status": "full", "posed": { "date": "1882", "precision": "year", "note": "Pathogen identified by Robert Koch, announced 24 March 1882." }, "capableSince": { "date": "1944", "precision": "year", "note": "Streptomycin isolated 1943, published 1944; first randomized trial 1948." }, "hook": "Curable for 82 years. 1.23 million deaths last year.", "wallText": [ "Tuberculosis has been with us longer than writing. For most of that time nobody knew what it was: a wasting, a romantic pallor, a family curse. In 1882 Robert Koch put a stained slide under a microscope in Berlin and showed a room of doctors the bacterium that caused it. Knowing didn't cure anyone. The cure came sixty-one years later, from soil: a graduate student named Albert Schatz isolated streptomycin in 1943, and a British trial in 1948 proved it worked — the first time medicine ran a randomized trial at all. George Orwell was one of the first Britons to get the drug. It nearly killed him, and the disease finished the job in 1950.", "That is the shape of this exhibit. We have known for 144 years. We have been able to cure for 82. In 2024, 10.7 million people fell ill and 1.23 million died, and about 2.4 million were never diagnosed at all. The problem is no longer knowing or being able. It is reaching people — and paying for it." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "Robert Koch's drawings of the tubercle bacillus, 1882", "kind": "document", "source": "U.S. National Library of Medicine", "licence": "Public domain (to be confirmed on the source page)", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Transmission, mechanism and cure are settled science. No knowledge barrier on the critical path." }, "can": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Curative regimens exist, including shorter all-oral ones for drug-resistant TB. Vaccine: partial — BCG protects children and is weak in adults; candidates are in late-stage trials." }, "do": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "About 2.4 million of 10.7 million people with TB were not diagnosed or reported in 2024. That gap is the problem." }, "keep": { "state": "at-risk", "evidence": "WHO models up to 2 million additional deaths between 2025 and 2035 if donor funding keeps falling. Drug resistance is a standing threat." } }, "firstUnlit": "do", "glyph": { "type": "ring", "value": 0.32, "label": "−29%", "sub": "of −90% target", "meaning": "Deaths down 29% since 2015 against a target of −90% by 2030. The ring is distance to that target, not how solved." }, "condition": { "headline": "1.23 million deaths in 2024 — the lowest recorded", "detail": "10.7 million people fell ill; 8.3 million were diagnosed and treated. Deaths fell 3% and incidence nearly 2% between 2023 and 2024. Against the End TB milestones, deaths are down 29% since 2015 where the 2025 milestone was −75%; incidence is down about 12% where the milestone was −50%.", "trend": "Declining about 3% a year. At that pace the 2030 target is not reached.", "series": [ { "x": "2015 (index 100)", "y": 100 }, { "x": "2024", "y": 71 } ], "targets": [ { "x": "2025", "y": 25, "label": "2025 milestone · missed" }, { "x": "2030", "y": 10, "label": "2030 target" } ], "sourceIds": [ "who-tb-2025" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "tb-case-finding", "title": "Case-finding gap", "stages": [ "do" ], "text": "Roughly 2.4 million people with TB each year are never diagnosed or reported, so they are not treated and keep transmitting.", "evidence": "WHO 2025: 10.7M incident vs 8.3M notified and treated.", "weakenedBy": [ "tb-cad-who-2021", "tb-rapid-molecular" ], "disagreement": "How the 'missing' cases are estimated: modelled incidence vs notifications." }, { "id": "tb-financing", "title": "Financing", "stages": [ "do", "keep" ], "text": "Donor funding is below commitments and falling; WHO projects up to 2 million extra deaths and 10 million extra cases by 2035 if cuts persist.", "evidence": "WHO 2025 modelling. Year-by-year funding figures: not yet sourced here.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": "Domestic vs donor responsibility; where the next dollar goes." }, { "id": "tb-resistance", "title": "Drug resistance", "stages": [ "can", "keep" ], "text": "Multidrug-resistant TB remains a public health crisis; resistance erodes the cure itself unless regimens and surveillance keep pace.", "evidence": "WHO 2025 (MDR-TB section).", "weakenedBy": [ "tb-mdr-regimen-2022" ], "disagreement": "How fast resistance to the newer regimens will emerge." }, { "id": "tb-social", "title": "Social determinants", "stages": [ "do" ], "text": "Poverty, malnutrition, crowding and HIV drive incidence; this barrier is shared with the Poverty & Development hall.", "evidence": "WHO risk-factor estimates: not yet sourced here.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": "How much incidence is attributable to each determinant." } ], "unlocks": [ { "title": "AI-read chest X-ray (CAD)", "confidence": "demonstrated", "text": "→ case-finding. WHO-recommended since 2021 for people aged 15 and over; six products met WHO performance standards in independent evaluation (2025).", "resultId": "tb-cad-who-2021" }, { "title": "Shorter regimens for drug-resistant TB", "confidence": "demonstrated", "text": "→ drug resistance. All-oral, months not years.", "resultId": "tb-mdr-regimen-2022" }, { "title": "An effective adult vaccine", "confidence": "expected", "text": "→ incidence, not only deaths. Candidates in Phase III.", "resultId": "m72-phase3" }, { "title": "Sustained financing", "confidence": "expected", "text": "→ financing and Keep. The unlock most cited by WHO, and the least technical. A decision with named deciders, not a result." }, { "title": "AI-designed antibiotics", "confidence": "speculative", "text": "→ resistance. Preclinical only; nothing in human trials for TB." } ], "approaches": [ { "title": "Systematic screening with CAD chest X-ray", "target": "Case-finding", "evidence": "WHO recommendation (2021); independent product evaluation (2025)", "standing": "deployed" }, { "title": "Rapid molecular diagnostics", "target": "Case-finding; resistance detection", "evidence": "WHO recommended", "standing": "deployed" }, { "title": "Shorter all-oral regimens for drug-resistant TB", "target": "Resistance; adherence", "evidence": "WHO guideline", "standing": "deployed" }, { "title": "Preventive therapy for contacts and people with HIV", "target": "Incidence", "evidence": "WHO recommended", "standing": "partly-delivered" }, { "title": "M72/AS01E vaccine candidate", "target": "Incidence in adults and adolescents", "evidence": "Phase III ongoing", "standing": "in-trial" }, { "title": "Mass community screening", "target": "Case-finding", "evidence": "Cost-effectiveness debated by setting", "standing": "contested" } ], "efforts": [ { "title": "WHO End TB Strategy", "span": "2015–2035", "note": "Milestones: −75% deaths by 2025 (missed); target −90% by 2030." }, { "title": "UN High-Level Meetings on TB", "span": "2018, 2023", "note": "Funding and vaccine commitments, partly unmet." }, { "title": "National TB programmes", "span": "ongoing", "note": "India carries about one in four of the world's cases and 28% of deaths." }, { "title": "Global Fund · Stop TB Partnership · Gates MRI", "span": "ongoing", "note": "Funding figures not shown until sourced." } ], "resultIds": [ "tb-cad-who-2021", "tb-mdr-regimen-2022", "m72-phase3", "tb-rapid-molecular" ], "cast": [ "laennec-rene", "villemin-jean-antoine", "koch-robert", "roentgen-wilhelm", "schatz-waksman", "mrc-trial-1948", "orwell-george", "farmer-paul" ], "moreCast": [ "trudeau-edward", "calmette-guerin", "chekhov-anton", "keats-john" ], "objectIds": [ "koch-drawings-1882", "koch-microscope", "streptomycin-vial", "early-chest-radiograph", "cad-cxr-2025" ], "disagreement": [ "Vaccine R&D versus scale-up of diagnosis — where the next dollar goes.", "Mass screening — cost-effective where prevalence is high; debated elsewhere.", "Counting 'missing' cases — modelled incidence versus notifications." ], "setbacks": [ { "date": "2020–2021", "text": "Pandemic disruptions cut diagnosis; deaths rose for the first time in years." }, { "date": "2025", "text": "Donor funding cuts; WHO warns gains could reverse." }, { "date": "standing", "text": "Drug resistance erodes the cure." } ], "maintenance": { "items": [ "Adherence support through months-long treatment", "Surveillance for resistance", "Recurring financing — the Keep light is at risk because this line is" ], "status": "at risk (WHO 2025)" }, "doors": [ { "title": "WHO Global TB Programme — data and country profiles", "kind": "data", "sourceId": "who-tb-2025", "note": "Open data behind every number on this page." } ], "priority": { "scale": 90, "urgency": 55, "tractability": 85, "neglect": 60, "leverage": 40, "notes": { "scale": "1.23M deaths a year; 10.7M cases", "urgency": "resistance; funding window", "tractability": "Do-stuck: money and systems", "neglect": "funding below commitments", "leverage": "shares barriers with poverty and HIV" } }, "flags": [ "regression-risk" ], "sourceIds": [ "who-tb-2025", "who-cad-2025" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "guinea-worm", "hallId": "health", "alsoIn": [], "title": "Guinea worm disease", "kind": "problem", "status": "full", "posed": { "date": "1986", "precision": "year", "note": "The Carter Center took over the global eradication campaign in 1986, when an estimated 3.5 million cases occurred annually in 21 countries." }, "hook": "Ten human cases left. No drug, no vaccine — filters and patience.", "wallText": [ "There is no medicine for Guinea worm and there never has been. People drink water with the larvae in it; a year later a worm as long as an arm emerges through a blister, and the burning drives them back to the water, which starts it again. The campaign that is ending this disease works with cloth filters, pipe filters, village volunteers, cash rewards for reporting a case, and the patience to investigate more than a million reports in a single year.", "In 1986 there were 3.5 million cases a year. In 2025 there were ten. Two hundred countries are certified free; six are not. What stands between ten and zero is the hardest part of any eradication: remote and insecure places, and an animal reservoir that rose slightly last year. This is an exhibit about keeping." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "A cloth filter in use at a water source", "kind": "photograph", "source": "The Carter Center (permission required) or CDC Public Health Image Library", "licence": "to be determined", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Life cycle and transmission fully understood; interruption works without a drug or vaccine." }, "can": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Filtration, case containment, larvicide and surveillance have taken cases from 3.5 million a year to ten." }, "do": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Delivered almost everywhere: 200 countries certified free. The remaining cases are in a handful of remote, insecure districts." }, "keep": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "Animal infections rose slightly in 2025 (Chad 125, Cameroon 445, Angola 70, Mali 17, Ethiopia 1, South Sudan 3). Eradication requires zero in animals too." } }, "firstUnlit": "keep", "glyph": { "type": "ring", "value": 0.9999, "label": "10", "sub": "human cases, 2025", "meaning": "Distance to zero human cases, from 3.5 million a year in 1986. Provisional until the campaign's annual review." }, "condition": { "headline": "10 human cases in 2025, the lowest ever recorded", "detail": "Down from 15 in 2024 (−33%). Cases were reported in South Sudan, Chad and Ethiopia; Angola, Cameroon, the Central African Republic and Mali reported none for the second year. More than one million reports were investigated in 2025, nearly all within 24 hours. The World Health Assembly adopted resolution WHA78.14 in May 2025 to accelerate eradication.", "trend": "Human cases falling; animal infections up slightly on the year.", "series": [ { "x": "1986", "y": 3500000 }, { "x": "2024", "y": 15 }, { "x": "2025", "y": 10 } ], "sourceIds": [ "carter-gw-2025" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "gw-animals", "title": "Animal reservoir", "stages": [ "keep" ], "text": "The same worm infects dogs and other animals; eradication requires zero infections in animals as well as people.", "evidence": "Carter Center 2025 country counts.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": "Which detection and control measures work in animals; a diagnostic test is in development." }, { "id": "gw-insecurity", "title": "Remote and insecure areas", "stages": [ "do", "keep" ], "text": "The last cases are in places that are hard to reach and sometimes in conflict.", "evidence": "Carter Center 2025.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": null } ], "unlocks": [ { "title": "A field diagnostic for animal infection", "confidence": "expected", "text": "→ animal reservoir. In development (Carter Center)." }, { "title": "Sustained surveillance funding after the last human case", "confidence": "expected", "text": "→ Keep. Certification takes years of zero." } ], "approaches": [ { "title": "Household and pipe filters", "target": "Transmission", "evidence": "Programme practice since the 1980s", "standing": "deployed" }, { "title": "Case containment and cash rewards for reporting", "target": "Surveillance", "evidence": "Programme practice", "standing": "deployed" }, { "title": "Tethering dogs; larvicide (temephos)", "target": "Animal reservoir", "evidence": "Programme practice; evaluation ongoing", "standing": "partly-delivered" } ], "efforts": [ { "title": "Carter Center Guinea Worm Eradication Program with national ministries, WHO, UNICEF, CDC", "span": "1986–", "note": "More than 100 million cases averted since 1986." } ], "resultIds": [], "cast": [ "hopkins-donald", "yibi-makoy", "carter-jimmy", "gw-volunteers" ], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [ "gw-pipe-filter" ], "disagreement": [ "How to count and certify in the presence of animal infection." ], "setbacks": [ { "date": "2025", "text": "Animal infections rose overall, driven by Cameroon and Angola, even as four countries reduced them." } ], "maintenance": { "items": [ "Village-level surveillance and reward systems", "Animal detection and control", "Certification work in six remaining countries" ], "status": "funded for now; the campaign's own line is 'zero is the only acceptable number'" }, "doors": [ { "title": "Report a suspected case — national programmes pay cash rewards", "kind": "volunteer", "sourceId": "carter-gw-2025", "note": "In endemic countries; details on the Carter Center site." } ], "priority": { "scale": 10, "urgency": 40, "tractability": 90, "neglect": 30, "leverage": 50, "notes": { "scale": "ten cases, but a whole disease", "urgency": "the endgame window", "tractability": "known methods", "neglect": "well supported", "leverage": "proof that eradication without medicine is possible" } }, "flags": [ "maintenance-phase" ], "sourceIds": [ "carter-gw-2025" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "ipf", "hallId": "health", "alsoIn": [], "title": "Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis", "kind": "problem", "status": "full", "problemId": "ipf", "posed": null, "hook": "Lungs that scar until they fail. The first AI-designed drug for it is in its decisive trial.", "wallText": [ "Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis scars the lungs progressively, and 'idiopathic' means nobody knows why. Approved drugs slow the decline; they rarely reverse it. Median survival after diagnosis is a few years.", "The candidate here was chosen and designed by software: a target picked from multi-omics data, a molecule generated to hit it, then the ordinary, slow, human road — 71 patients for twelve weeks in a Phase IIa trial published in 2025, and now 320 patients for 52 weeks in a Phase III that began in July 2026. It is investigational. It can fail. That sentence is the whole point of showing it." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "A chest CT showing fibrotic change", "kind": "document", "source": "to be sourced (open-licence radiology teaching file)", "licence": "to be determined", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "Mechanisms partly understood; cause unknown by definition." }, "can": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "Approved antifibrotics slow decline; no disease-modifying treatment yet." }, "do": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "Existing drugs reach patients in wealthy systems; access elsewhere is uneven." }, "keep": { "state": "na", "evidence": "Not applicable until a durable gain exists." } }, "firstUnlit": "know", "glyph": { "type": "ladder", "steps": [ "Preclinical", "Phase I", "Phase II", "Phase III", "Approved", "In guidelines", "Outcome measured" ], "current": 3, "label": "Phase III", "sub": "started July 2026", "meaning": "Stage of the leading candidate, not of the disease." }, "condition": { "headline": "No disease-modifying treatment; a Phase III under way", "detail": "Rentosertib (ISM001-055): Phase IIa, 71 patients, 12 weeks, published in Nature Medicine 2025 with a dose-dependent trend in forced vital capacity; Phase III GENESIS-IPF-3 (NCT07687459), 320 patients, 47 centres in China, 52 weeks, first patient dosed September 2026. The company's own release says it remains investigational and unapproved; it estimates IPF affects about 5 million people worldwide with a median survival of three to four years.", "trend": "A confirmatory trial will take years; the site shows no benefit until one is measured.", "sourceIds": [ "insilico-p3-2026", "ipf-paper" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "ipf-cause", "title": "Unknown cause", "stages": [ "know" ], "text": "Idiopathic means the cause is not known; treatments target downstream fibrosis.", "evidence": "Standard clinical definition.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": null }, { "id": "ipf-modifying", "title": "No disease-modifying therapy", "stages": [ "can" ], "text": "Current drugs slow decline; none reverses scarring.", "evidence": "Insilico release; standard of care.", "weakenedBy": [ "rentosertib-phase3" ], "disagreement": "Whether a 12-week FVC signal predicts 52-week benefit." } ], "unlocks": [ { "title": "Rentosertib Phase III read-out", "confidence": "expected", "text": "→ disease modification, if the 52-week primary endpoint is met.", "resultId": "rentosertib-phase3" } ], "approaches": [ { "title": "Approved antifibrotics", "target": "Slowing decline", "evidence": "Regulatory approvals", "standing": "deployed" }, { "title": "Rentosertib (TNIK inhibitor, AI-designed)", "target": "Disease modification", "evidence": "Phase IIa published; Phase III ongoing", "standing": "in-trial" } ], "efforts": [ { "title": "Insilico Medicine — GENESIS-IPF-3", "span": "2026–", "note": "From Phase III start to a regulatory decision takes three to four years under favourable conditions (company statement)." } ], "resultIds": [ "rentosertib-phase3" ], "cast": [], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [ "Whether exploratory 12-week lung-function gains predict 52-week benefit.", "Whether a single-country Phase III will generalize." ], "setbacks": [], "maintenance": { "items": [], "status": "not applicable yet" }, "doors": [], "priority": { "scale": 35, "urgency": 45, "tractability": 40, "neglect": 45, "leverage": 55, "notes": { "scale": "~5M people (company figure)", "urgency": "short survival after diagnosis", "tractability": "Know and Can both partial", "neglect": "moderate", "leverage": "a test of AI-designed drugs in general" } }, "flags": [ "ai-claim-on-desk" ], "sourceIds": [ "insilico-p3-2026", "ipf-paper" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "vaccines", "hallId": "health", "alsoIn": [ "risks" ], "title": "Vaccines", "kind": "problem", "status": "full", "posed": { "date": "1796", "precision": "year", "note": "Edward Jenner inoculates James Phipps with cowpox, 14 May 1796. Variolation is older: described to Cotton Mather in Boston by Onesimus, an enslaved West African man, before the 1721 epidemic." }, "hook": "The most effective tool medicine has ever had — and the clearest case of a gain that slips when nobody holds it.", "wallText": [ "Vaccines are not one problem; they are an approach that cuts across dozens. This exhibit holds the people and the pattern. The pattern is that knowing and being able were settled long ago — Jenner in 1796, Pasteur's attenuated vaccines in the 1880s, Salk and Sabin against polio in the 1950s, Hilleman's long list — and that the remaining work is delivery and, above all, keeping.", "Smallpox is gone. Polio is down to its last strongholds. Measles, declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, has come back in outbreaks. The gains are real and they are not permanent. That is why this exhibit's Keep light points down." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "Jenner's lancet, or the 1796 case notes", "kind": "object", "source": "Wellcome Collection / Science Museum Group", "licence": "to be determined", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Immunology of vaccination settled; mRNA platforms (2005 modification work, 2023 Nobel) extended what can be made quickly." }, "can": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Effective vaccines exist for dozens of diseases; new platforms shorten development." }, "do": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "Coverage is uneven between and within countries; the last mile is the expensive mile." }, "keep": { "state": "regressing", "evidence": "US measles: 2,289 cases in 2025 and 3,659 confirmed by 24 September 2026, more than any year since elimination was declared in 2000. Kindergarten MMR coverage 92.4% in 2025–26, from 95.2% in 2019–20 (CDC figures as reported)." } }, "firstUnlit": "do", "glyph": { "type": "trend", "series": [ { "x": "2025", "y": 2289 }, { "x": "2026", "y": 3659 } ], "label": "3,659", "sub": "US measles cases, 2026 to date", "confidence": "high for counts; a proxy for the Keep light, not a measure of vaccines overall", "meaning": "Confirmed US measles cases, the clearest signal that a held gain is slipping. Two points only; earlier years will be re-sourced individually." }, "condition": { "headline": "Settled science, slipping coverage: US measles at 3,659 confirmed cases in 2026 to date", "detail": "CDC data as of 24 September 2026, as reported: 3,659 confirmed cases, 95% outbreak-associated, 47 jurisdictions, 40 outbreaks; 2,289 cases in all of 2025. Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000. Global coverage figures are not shown until the WHO/UNICEF estimates are re-checked by this catalog.", "trend": "Keep is the live light, and it is pointing down.", "series": [ { "x": "2025", "y": 2289 }, { "x": "2026", "y": 3659 } ], "sourceIds": [ "contagion-measles-2026", "cdc-measles" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "vax-coverage", "title": "Coverage and the last mile", "stages": [ "do" ], "text": "Cold chains, workforce, cost and reach.", "evidence": "To be sourced (WHO/UNICEF coverage estimates).", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": null }, { "id": "vax-confidence", "title": "Confidence and misinformation", "stages": [ "keep" ], "text": "A retracted 1998 paper linking MMR to autism fed a decline in uptake that outlived the retraction (2010).", "evidence": "To be sourced (the retraction notice; coverage series).", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": "How much of the decline is misinformation versus access and trust in institutions." } ], "unlocks": [ { "title": "Platform vaccines (mRNA and others)", "confidence": "demonstrated", "text": "→ speed of development; shown in 2020–21." }, { "title": "Sustained routine-immunization funding", "confidence": "expected", "text": "→ Do and Keep." } ], "approaches": [ { "title": "Routine childhood immunization schedules", "target": "Coverage", "evidence": "WHO/UNICEF programmes", "standing": "deployed" }, { "title": "Ring vaccination (Foege, smallpox)", "target": "Outbreak control", "evidence": "Historical programme success", "standing": "deployed" } ], "efforts": [ { "title": "WHO Expanded Programme on Immunization; Gavi", "span": "1974– / 2000–", "note": "Figures not shown until sourced." } ], "resultIds": [], "cast": [ "onesimus", "montagu-mary", "jenner-edward", "pasteur-louis", "salk-jonas", "sabin-albert", "hilleman-maurice", "foege-bill" ], "moreCast": [ "phipps-james", "calmette-guerin", "henderson-da", "kariko-katalin", "weissman-drew" ], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [ "How to weigh mandates against trust.", "How much of falling coverage is misinformation versus access." ], "setbacks": [ { "date": "1955", "text": "The Cutter incident: a batch of improperly inactivated polio vaccine caused cases of polio." }, { "date": "1998–2010", "text": "A fraudulent paper linking MMR to autism, retracted in 2010, fed a lasting fall in uptake." }, { "date": "2025–2026", "text": "US measles cases exceed every year since elimination was declared in 2000: 2,289 in 2025, 3,659 by late September 2026." } ], "maintenance": { "items": [ "Routine coverage every birth cohort, forever", "Surveillance and outbreak response", "Public confidence" ], "status": "regressing in places" }, "doors": [], "priority": { "scale": 85, "urgency": 60, "tractability": 80, "neglect": 35, "leverage": 90, "notes": { "scale": "millions of deaths averted a year", "urgency": "outbreaks return quickly", "tractability": "Do and Keep problems", "neglect": "well funded, unevenly", "leverage": "one approach, dozens of diseases" } }, "flags": [ "regressing" ], "sourceIds": [ "contagion-measles-2026", "cdc-measles", "nobel-chem-2024" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "smallpox", "hallId": "health", "alsoIn": [], "title": "Smallpox", "kind": "problem", "status": "finished", "posed": { "date": "1796", "precision": "year", "note": "Jenner's cowpox inoculation; the disease itself is ancient." }, "hook": "The one finished story. 184 years from vaccine to eradication, held for 46.", "wallText": [ "Smallpox is the only human disease eradicated. Jenner’s vaccine came in 1796; the World Health Organization’s intensified programme began in 1967; the last natural case was in Somalia in 1977; the Global Commission certified eradication in December 1979 and WHO declared it in 1980. It is on this site because it shows what ‘done’ looks like — and that done still has a Keep light: WHO maintains an emergency vaccine stockpile, and the virus still exists in two laboratories." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "A WHO smallpox eradication certificate or recognition card, 1980", "kind": "document", "source": "WHO archives (to be sourced)", "licence": "to be determined", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Settled." }, "can": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Vaccine since 1796; ring vaccination strategy." }, "do": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Delivered globally by 1977." }, "keep": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Held since 1980; WHO keeps an emergency vaccine stockpile and oversees the two remaining research stocks." } }, "firstUnlit": null, "glyph": { "type": "ring", "value": 1, "label": "0", "sub": "cases since 1977", "meaning": "Closed ring: eradication certified 1980." }, "condition": { "headline": "Eradicated: last natural case 1977, certified December 1979, declared 1980", "detail": "WHO: the intensified eradication programme began in 1967; the last known natural case was in Somalia in 1977; the Global Commission certified eradication in December 1979 and WHO declared it in 1980. Research stocks are retained at two laboratories (United States, Russian Federation) under an advisory committee that meets annually; WHO manages an emergency vaccine stockpile.", "trend": "Held for 46 years.", "sourceIds": [ "who-smallpox" ] }, "barriers": [], "unlocks": [], "approaches": [ { "title": "Vaccination with ring strategy around cases", "target": "Transmission", "evidence": "Programme history", "standing": "deployed" } ], "efforts": [ { "title": "WHO Intensified Smallpox Eradication Programme", "span": "1967–1980", "note": "Led in its later years by D. A. Henderson; ring-vaccination strategy associated with Bill Foege." } ], "resultIds": [], "cast": [ "jenner-edward", "henderson-da", "foege-bill" ], "moreCast": [ "onesimus", "montagu-mary" ], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [ "Whether the remaining laboratory stocks should be destroyed." ], "setbacks": [], "maintenance": { "items": [ "Surveillance for any reappearance", "Vaccine stockpiles", "Laboratory stock security" ], "status": "held" }, "doors": [], "priority": null, "flags": [ "finished" ], "sourceIds": [ "who-smallpox" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "polio", "hallId": "health", "alsoIn": [], "title": "Polio", "kind": "problem", "status": "full", "posed": { "date": "1955", "precision": "year", "note": "Salk's inactivated vaccine announced effective, 12 April 1955; the global eradication initiative began in 1988." }, "hook": "Two of three virus types gone. The third is holding out.", "wallText": [ "Polio paralysed hundreds of thousands of children a year when the eradication initiative began in 1988. Two of the three wild virus types have been certified eradicated — type 2 in 2015, type 3 in 2019. Type 1 remains in Afghanistan and Pakistan: 99 cases in 2024, 47 in 2025, and nine reported by mid-June 2026. Vaccine-derived outbreaks, where oral-vaccine virus circulates in under-vaccinated places, complicate the end. This is an exhibit about the last mile and about keeping." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "An iron lung ward photograph, 1950s", "kind": "photograph", "source": "to be sourced (US National Library of Medicine / March of Dimes archives)", "licence": "to be determined", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Settled." }, "can": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Inactivated (Salk) and oral (Sabin) vaccines." }, "do": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "Wild type 1 persists in Afghanistan and Pakistan: 99 cases in 2024, 47 in 2025." }, "keep": { "state": "at-risk", "evidence": "Vaccine-derived outbreaks where coverage lapses." } }, "firstUnlit": "do", "glyph": { "type": "ladder", "steps": [ "Type 2 eradicated (2015)", "Type 3 eradicated (2019)", "Type 1 eradicated", "All transmission stopped", "Certified" ], "current": 2, "label": "2 of 3 types", "sub": "certified eradicated", "meaning": "Stage-gated progress toward certification." }, "condition": { "headline": "47 wild poliovirus cases in 2025 (Afghanistan 16, Pakistan 31), down from 99 in 2024", "detail": "WHO EMRO table, up to 22 February 2026: 2024 — Afghanistan 25, Pakistan 74; 2025 — Afghanistan 16, Pakistan 31. A press report citing WHO put 2026 at nine cases by 18 June (Afghanistan 6, Pakistan 3). Wild types 2 and 3 were certified eradicated in 2015 and 2019; type 1 remains in these two countries. Vaccine-derived outbreaks elsewhere are tracked separately by GPEI and are not shown until that page is re-checked.", "trend": "Falling; the endgame is a few districts.", "series": [ { "x": "2024", "y": 99 }, { "x": "2025", "y": 47 } ], "sourceIds": [ "who-emro-polio", "epinews-polio-2026" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "polio-insecurity", "title": "Insecurity and access in the last reservoirs", "stages": [ "do" ], "text": "Vaccination teams cannot reach every child where there is conflict or mistrust.", "evidence": "To be sourced.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": null }, { "id": "polio-vdpv", "title": "Vaccine-derived poliovirus", "stages": [ "keep" ], "text": "Oral vaccine virus can circulate and revert where coverage is low.", "evidence": "To be sourced.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": "Timing of the switch away from oral vaccine." } ], "unlocks": [], "approaches": [ { "title": "Oral polio vaccine campaigns", "target": "Transmission", "evidence": "Programme practice", "standing": "deployed" }, { "title": "Inactivated vaccine in routine schedules", "target": "Protection without vaccine-derived risk", "evidence": "Programme practice", "standing": "deployed" } ], "efforts": [ { "title": "Global Polio Eradication Initiative", "span": "1988–", "note": "WHO, Rotary, CDC, UNICEF, Gates Foundation, Gavi." } ], "resultIds": [], "cast": [ "salk-jonas", "sabin-albert" ], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [ "Oral versus inactivated vaccine in the endgame." ], "setbacks": [ { "date": "1955", "text": "The Cutter incident." } ], "maintenance": { "items": [ "Surveillance for paralysis cases", "Routine coverage", "Outbreak response" ], "status": "at risk where coverage lapses" }, "doors": [], "priority": null, "flags": [], "sourceIds": [ "who-emro-polio", "epinews-polio-2026", "gpei" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "malaria", "hallId": "health", "alsoIn": [ "poverty" ], "title": "Malaria", "kind": "problem", "status": "under-investigation", "posed": null, "hook": "Under investigation.", "wallText": [ "Sources are being gathered. The site shows an exhibit in this state rather than guessing: no ring, no lights, no barrier diagnosis until two editors agree." ], "heroRecord": null, "lights": null, "firstUnlit": null, "glyph": { "type": "none" }, "condition": null, "barriers": [], "unlocks": [], "approaches": [], "efforts": [], "resultIds": [], "cast": [], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [], "setbacks": [], "maintenance": null, "doors": [], "priority": null, "flags": [ "under-investigation" ], "sourceIds": [], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "clean-electricity", "hallId": "energy", "alsoIn": [ "climate" ], "title": "Low-carbon electricity", "kind": "problem", "status": "full", "posed": { "date": "1954", "precision": "year", "note": "The first practical silicon solar cell (Bell Labs); the problem as a global target dates from the 1990s." }, "hook": "Clean power met all of the world's new demand in 2025 — and still supplies less than half of it.", "wallText": [ "For the first time, in 2025, low-carbon sources grew faster than the world's appetite for electricity: renewables supplied 33.8% of global generation and overtook coal, and with nuclear at 8.9% the low-carbon share is a little over two-fifths. Solar met three-quarters of the new demand on its own.", "The physics has been settled for decades and the components are cheap. What stands in the way is not knowing or building. It is firm power — keeping the lights on when the sun and wind don't cooperate — and the permits, grids and finance that turn cheap generation into reliable supply." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "The 1954 Bell Labs solar battery demonstration", "kind": "photograph", "source": "to be sourced (AT&T / Nokia Bell Labs archive; Library of Congress)", "licence": "to be determined", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "The physics and economics are understood." }, "can": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Solar, wind, batteries, fission and hydro exist at scale; firm clean capacity (long-duration storage, geothermal, new fission) is partial." }, "do": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "About 43% of global generation in 2025; permitting, interconnection and finance limit the pace." }, "keep": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "Policy reversals, interconnection queues and grid ageing." } }, "firstUnlit": "do", "glyph": { "type": "ring", "value": 0.43, "label": "≈43%", "sub": "low-carbon, 2025", "meaning": "Share of global electricity from low-carbon sources, toward 100%." }, "condition": { "headline": "Renewables 33.8%, coal 33.0%, nuclear 8.9% of global generation in 2025", "detail": "Coal fell below a third of global generation for the first time. Clean power additions (≈887 TWh) exceeded demand growth (≈849 TWh), so fossil generation fell. Ember's review covers 91 countries and 93% of demand. The 2024 low-carbon share was 40.9%.", "trend": "Rising; the share crossed 40% in 2024.", "series": [ { "x": "2024", "y": 40.9 }, { "x": "2025", "y": 43 } ], "sourceIds": [ "owid-lowcarbon", "ember-ger-2026" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "elec-firm", "title": "Firm clean power", "stages": [ "can" ], "text": "Cheap generation is not reliable supply; long-duration storage and firm clean sources are the gap.", "evidence": "Ember 2026; DOE adoption-readiness framing.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": "Storage versus firm generation versus demand flexibility." }, { "id": "elec-permits", "title": "Permitting and interconnection", "stages": [ "do" ], "text": "Projects wait years for grid connection in many markets.", "evidence": "To be sourced per market.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": null }, { "id": "elec-finance", "title": "Cost of capital in developing economies", "stages": [ "do" ], "text": "Capital costs make cheap technology expensive where it is needed most.", "evidence": "To be sourced.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": null } ], "unlocks": [ { "title": "Cheap long-duration storage", "confidence": "expected", "text": "→ firm power; large fan-out." }, { "title": "Faster permitting and grid build-out", "confidence": "expected", "text": "→ Do." } ], "approaches": [ { "title": "Solar and wind", "target": "Generation", "evidence": "Deployed at scale", "standing": "deployed" }, { "title": "Batteries (short duration)", "target": "Firming hours", "evidence": "Deployed at scale", "standing": "deployed" }, { "title": "Long-duration storage", "target": "Firming days", "evidence": "Pilots and first plants", "standing": "in-trial" }, { "title": "New fission and enhanced geothermal", "target": "Firm clean", "evidence": "First plants", "standing": "in-trial" } ], "efforts": [ { "title": "National grids and regulators; IEA and Ember tracking", "span": "ongoing", "note": "" } ], "resultIds": [], "cast": [], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [ "Role of nuclear versus storage for firm power.", "How to count 'low-carbon' (nuclear in or out)." ], "setbacks": [ { "date": "various", "text": "Policy reversals and cost overruns on first-of-a-kind plants." } ], "maintenance": { "items": [ "Grid maintenance and modernisation", "Refuelling and relicensing", "Permits that lapse" ], "status": "partial" }, "doors": [ { "title": "Ember yearly electricity data (open)", "kind": "data", "sourceId": "owid-lowcarbon", "note": "The dataset behind the ring." } ], "priority": { "scale": 90, "urgency": 70, "tractability": 75, "neglect": 25, "leverage": 95, "notes": { "scale": "the energy base of everything else", "urgency": "climate windows", "tractability": "Do-stuck", "neglect": "heavily resourced", "leverage": "unlocks electrified transport, heat, industry" } }, "flags": [], "sourceIds": [ "owid-lowcarbon", "ember-ger-2026", "doe-arl" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "fusion", "hallId": "energy", "alsoIn": [ "frontiers" ], "title": "Fusion power", "kind": "problem", "status": "full", "problemId": "plasma", "posed": { "date": "1951", "precision": "year", "note": "National fusion programmes begin." }, "hook": "Ignition ten times. A power plant: not yet, and not soon.", "wallText": [ "On 5 December 2022 the National Ignition Facility produced more fusion energy from a target than the laser energy delivered to it, for the first time. On 7 April 2025 it produced 8.6 megajoules from 2.08, a target gain above four, and by late 2025 it had ignited ten times. Read the denominator: target gain counts laser light on the capsule, not the electricity the building draws. It says nothing about a power plant.", "ITER, the international tokamak, moved its research start to 2034 and deuterium–tritium operation to 2039 under its 2024 baseline, from a 2016 plan that promised first plasma in 2025. Both facts sit on the timeline as what they are: a scientific milestone and a schedule slip. This is the one exhibit in the energy hall still stuck on knowing and building." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "The NIF target chamber, or a hohlraum", "kind": "photograph", "source": "Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (US government work; check contractor terms)", "licence": "to be confirmed", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "Plasma physics largely understood; materials under neutron load, tritium breeding and sustained burn are open." }, "can": { "state": "not-yet", "evidence": "No engineering gain; no net electricity from any device." }, "do": { "state": "na", "evidence": "Nothing to deliver yet." }, "keep": { "state": "na", "evidence": "Not applicable." } }, "firstUnlit": "know", "glyph": { "type": "ladder", "steps": [ "Burning plasma", "Scientific ignition", "Target gain >4", "Engineering gain", "Pilot plant", "Commercial plant", "Grid share" ], "current": 2, "label": "Target gain >4", "sub": "NIF, April 2025", "meaning": "Stage-gated; the next rung is engineering gain, which no device has reached." }, "condition": { "headline": "Ignition achieved ten times; record 8.6 MJ from 2.08 MJ", "detail": "NIF: 3.15 MJ from 2.05 MJ on 5 Dec 2022; 8.6 MJ (±0.45) from 2.08 MJ on 7 Apr 2025, target gain 4.13; tenth ignition in late 2025. ITER 2024 baseline: start of research operations 2034, full magnetic energy 2036, deuterium–tritium operation 2039 (previous baseline 2035).", "trend": "Yield rising at NIF; schedules slipping at ITER.", "sourceIds": [ "llnl-nif", "iter-baseline-2024" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "fusion-materials", "title": "Materials under neutron bombardment", "stages": [ "know", "can" ], "text": "First-wall and structural materials must survive years of 14 MeV neutrons.", "evidence": "ITER baseline change to tungsten first wall; LLNL survivability experiments.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": null }, { "id": "fusion-tritium", "title": "Tritium breeding and fuel cycle", "stages": [ "know", "can" ], "text": "A plant must breed its own tritium; no device has demonstrated a closed fuel cycle.", "evidence": "Standard programme statements.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": null }, { "id": "fusion-gain", "title": "Engineering gain", "stages": [ "can" ], "text": "Facility-level energy in versus electricity out; NIF's lasers draw far more than they deliver to the target.", "evidence": "LLNL definitions of target gain.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": "Inertial versus magnetic routes." } ], "unlocks": [ { "title": "Reinforcement-learning plasma control", "confidence": "demonstrated", "text": "→ control of tokamak plasmas on TCV (2022). Independently checked; not deployed in a power plant because there is none.", "resultId": "tcv-control" }, { "title": "High-temperature superconducting magnets", "confidence": "expected", "text": "→ smaller magnetic devices." } ], "approaches": [ { "title": "Inertial confinement (NIF)", "target": "Ignition physics", "evidence": "Ignition demonstrated", "standing": "in-trial" }, { "title": "Magnetic confinement (ITER, private tokamaks and stellarators)", "target": "Sustained burn", "evidence": "Large devices under construction", "standing": "in-trial" } ], "efforts": [ { "title": "ITER", "span": "2007– (research operations 2034, D–T 2039)", "note": "35-nation project; 2024 baseline." }, { "title": "NIF (LLNL)", "span": "2009–", "note": "Stockpile-stewardship mission; ignition science." } ], "resultIds": [ "nif-ignition-2025", "tcv-control" ], "cast": [], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [ "Inertial versus magnetic routes.", "Whether private timelines (2030s) are credible." ], "setbacks": [ { "date": "2024", "text": "ITER baseline slips research start to 2034 and D–T to 2039." } ], "maintenance": { "items": [], "status": "not applicable yet" }, "doors": [], "priority": { "scale": 60, "urgency": 30, "tractability": 30, "neglect": 30, "leverage": 95, "notes": { "scale": "potentially all energy", "urgency": "no near-term window", "tractability": "Know/Can-stuck", "neglect": "well funded", "leverage": "enormous if it works" } }, "flags": [], "sourceIds": [ "llnl-nif", "iter-baseline-2024", "tcv-paper" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "riemann", "hallId": "frontiers", "alsoIn": [], "title": "Riemann Hypothesis", "kind": "question", "status": "full", "problemId": "riemann", "posed": { "date": "1859", "precision": "year", "note": "Riemann's 1859 paper." }, "hook": "Open since 1859. Verified for three trillion zeros. Proved for none of the rest.", "wallText": [ "Bernhard Riemann made the remark almost in passing, in an eight-page paper in 1859: the interesting zeros of a certain function all seem to lie on one line. He died seven years later. In 1914 Hardy proved there are infinitely many on the line; in 1989 Conrey proved more than two-fifths of them are; by 2021 computers had checked the first three trillion. None of that is a proof.", "It needs no practical justification to be here. But many theorems in number theory are proved on the condition that it is true, so the day it falls, a great deal becomes unconditional at once. No AI system has made a verified contribution to the hypothesis itself; the claims desk shows what has happened in the neighbourhood." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "A page of Riemann's 1859 manuscript", "kind": "document", "source": "to be sourced (Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen)", "licence": "to be determined", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "not-yet", "evidence": "The question itself is the barrier." }, "can": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" }, "do": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" }, "keep": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" } }, "firstUnlit": "know", "glyph": { "type": "ladder", "steps": [ "Open", "Partial results", "Claimed", "Checked", "Accepted", "Formalized" ], "current": 1, "label": "Partial results", "sub": ">40% of zeros on the line · verified to 3·10¹²", "meaning": "Proof status; never converted to a percentage." }, "condition": { "headline": "Open; a Clay Millennium Prize Problem", "detail": "Hardy (1914): infinitely many zeros on the critical line. Conrey (1989): more than 40% of them. Platt and Trudgian (2021): numerically verified to height 3·10¹².", "trend": "Lumpy by nature: nothing for decades, then a resolution — or not.", "sourceIds": [ "clay-riemann", "platt-trudgian-2021" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "rh-proof", "title": "A proof", "stages": [ "know" ], "text": "Named programmes: Hilbert–Pólya (a self-adjoint operator), random-matrix connections, and the function-field analogue proved by Deligne.", "evidence": "Clay problem description.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": "None on the statement; disputed claimed proofs appear on the timeline as 'claimed, not accepted'." } ], "unlocks": [ { "title": "Theorems that become unconditional", "confidence": "expected", "text": "Many results in analytic number theory are proved conditionally on RH or GRH." } ], "approaches": [ { "title": "Hilbert–Pólya programme", "target": "A spectral proof", "evidence": "Open", "standing": "contested" }, { "title": "Numerical verification", "target": "Evidence, not proof", "evidence": "3·10¹² zeros", "standing": "deployed" } ], "efforts": [ { "title": "Clay Mathematics Institute Millennium Prize", "span": "2000–", "note": "US$1 million per problem under Clay's rules." } ], "resultIds": [], "cast": [ "riemann-bernhard", "hardy-gh", "conrey-brian" ], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [], "setbacks": [ { "date": "recurring", "text": "Claimed proofs that did not survive checking; kept on the record as 'claimed, not accepted'." } ], "maintenance": { "items": [], "status": "not applicable — the one place where done is done" }, "doors": [ { "title": "Clay Millennium Prize — US$1 million", "kind": "prize", "sourceId": "clay-rules", "note": "Publication and a multi-year acceptance period are required before any award." } ], "priority": null, "flags": [], "sourceIds": [ "clay-riemann", "clay-rules", "platt-trudgian-2021" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "navier-stokes", "hallId": "frontiers", "alsoIn": [], "title": "Navier–Stokes regularity", "kind": "question", "status": "full", "problemId": "navier", "posed": { "date": "1845", "precision": "year", "note": "Equations in their modern form (Stokes); the regularity question was sharpened in the twentieth century." }, "hook": "Do the equations of fluid flow ever break? Nobody knows. Machines have found the shapes a breakdown would take.", "wallText": [ "The equations that describe water in a pipe and air over a wing have been written down since 1845. Whether their solutions can blow up — develop infinite velocities from smooth beginnings — is a Clay Millennium Prize Problem. In 1934 Leray showed weak solutions exist; the question is whether they stay smooth.", "In September 2025 a team spanning DeepMind, NYU, Stanford, Brown and EPFL published a preprint describing new families of unstable singularities in related fluid equations, found with physics-informed neural networks at near machine precision. It is a numerical discovery and a candidate for a computer-assisted proof, not a proof. On the claims desk it sits at 'documented'." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "A vorticity field from the 2025 preprint, or a photograph of turbulence", "kind": "document", "source": "arXiv preprint (licence per paper) or a public-domain flow photograph", "licence": "to be determined", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "not-yet", "evidence": "Open; Clay classification 'Active'." }, "can": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" }, "do": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" }, "keep": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" } }, "firstUnlit": "know", "glyph": { "type": "ladder", "steps": [ "Open", "Partial results", "Claimed", "Checked", "Accepted", "Formalized" ], "current": 1, "label": "Partial results", "sub": "unstable singularities found numerically (preprint, 2025)", "meaning": "Proof status." }, "condition": { "headline": "Open", "detail": "Clay's authority label is 'Active'. The 2025 preprint reports unstable self-similar singularities for the IPM, Boussinesq and related equations with residuals near machine precision, and an empirical pattern linking blow-up rate to instability order.", "trend": "A numerical result awaiting a rigorous argument.", "sourceIds": [ "clay-navier", "singularities-2025" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "ns-proof", "title": "A rigorous proof of blow-up or regularity", "stages": [ "know" ], "text": "Unstable singularities are hypothesized to be the relevant ones for the boundary-free 3D Euler and Navier–Stokes cases.", "evidence": "Preprint abstract.", "weakenedBy": [ "unstable-singularities-2025" ], "disagreement": null } ], "unlocks": [], "approaches": [ { "title": "Computer-assisted proof from high-precision numerical candidates", "target": "A rigorous blow-up result", "evidence": "Stated as next step in the preprint", "standing": "in-trial" } ], "efforts": [ { "title": "Clay Millennium Prize", "span": "2000–", "note": "" } ], "resultIds": [ "unstable-singularities-2025" ], "cast": [], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [], "setbacks": [], "maintenance": { "items": [], "status": "not applicable" }, "doors": [ { "title": "Clay Millennium Prize — US$1 million", "kind": "prize", "sourceId": "clay-rules", "note": "" } ], "priority": null, "flags": [ "ai-claim-on-desk" ], "sourceIds": [ "clay-navier", "singularities-2025" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "erdos-problems", "hallId": "frontiers", "alsoIn": [], "title": "The Erdős problems", "kind": "question", "status": "full", "posed": { "date": "2023", "precision": "year", "note": "Thomas Bloom's database launched in 2023; the problems themselves date from the 1930s onward." }, "hook": "More than a thousand questions one man left behind. In 2026, machines started answering some of them — and the hard part was telling which answers were real.", "wallText": [ "Paul Erdős posed thousands of problems across his life and scattered them through papers and letters. In 2023 Thomas Bloom gathered them into one database, each with a page and a status. That database is why the story of AI and mathematics in 2025–26 is legible at all: there was a list, with 'open' and 'solved' on it, that anyone could check.", "In October 2025 it looked as if a model had solved ten problems; the maintainer called that a dramatic misrepresentation — the model had found old papers. In January 2026 problem #728 became the first resolved autonomously by an AI system, with a formal proof and Terence Tao's verification. In May an internal OpenAI model disproved the unit-distance conjecture, open since 1946, and outside mathematicians checked and extended it. A DeepMind system resolved 9 of 353 formalized open problems at a few hundred dollars each. Tao's running caveat sits on every one of these rows: the problems vary in difficulty by orders of magnitude, the easy ones fall first, and failures go unreported." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "Erdős problem #728 as a Lean proof — a screenshot of the formal statement", "kind": "document", "source": "arXiv writeup; GitHub (licence per repository)", "licence": "to be determined", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "As of August 2026 the database listed 565 solved and 652 open problems." }, "can": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" }, "do": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" }, "keep": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" } }, "firstUnlit": "know", "glyph": { "type": "ring", "value": 0.464, "label": "565", "sub": "of 1,217 solved (Aug 2026)", "meaning": "Share of listed problems marked solved. Problems vary in difficulty by orders of magnitude, so this is a count, not a measure of progress." }, "condition": { "headline": "565 solved, 652 open (August 2026)", "detail": "The database grows as problems are found; 'open' means the maintainer knows of no published solution. Between 2024 and August 2025 the status of 111 problems changed to solved, some of them rediscoveries. Tao estimates only one or two percent of open Erdős problems are simple enough for current AI tools to solve with minimal human help.", "trend": "Fast movement on the easier tail; the core problems are untouched.", "sourceIds": [ "quanta-erdos-2026", "erdosproblems-site", "tao-ai-erdos-wiki" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "erdos-verification", "title": "Verification and attribution", "stages": [ "know" ], "text": "Telling an original proof from a rediscovered one, and a Lean-checked statement from the statement people meant.", "evidence": "October 2025 episode; Lean 'sorry' case study.", "weakenedBy": [ "erdos-728-2026", "alphaproof-nexus-2026" ], "disagreement": "How much credit an autonomous system gets when humans clarified the statement." } ], "unlocks": [ { "title": "Formal statements for every problem", "confidence": "expected", "text": "→ machine-checkable claims; Epoch's FrontierMath Erdős and DeepMind's formal-conjectures do this for subsets." } ], "approaches": [ { "title": "Autonomous proof search with Lean checking", "target": "The easier tail", "evidence": "AlphaProof Nexus, Science 2026", "standing": "deployed" }, { "title": "Human–AI collaboration on harder problems", "target": "The middle", "evidence": "Tao's wiki, class B rows", "standing": "in-trial" }, { "title": "AI literature search", "target": "Finding forgotten solutions", "evidence": "October 2025", "standing": "deployed" } ], "efforts": [ { "title": "erdosproblems.com (Bloom)", "span": "2023–", "note": "Community database with forum threads per problem." }, { "title": "Tao's 'AI contributions' wiki", "span": "2026–", "note": "The prior art for this site's claims desk." } ], "resultIds": [ "erdos-728-2026", "unit-distance-2026", "alphaproof-nexus-2026", "astra-aug-2026", "gpt5-erdos-literature-2025" ], "cast": [ "erdos-paul", "bloom-thomas", "tao-terence", "alon-noga", "gowers-timothy" ], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [ "lean-proof-728" ], "disagreement": [ "What 'autonomous' means when humans clarify the statement and run the tools.", "Whether Lean verification of a formalized statement settles the problem as posed." ], "setbacks": [ { "date": "2025-10", "text": "Ten 'solved' problems turned out to be literature search; reclassified." } ], "maintenance": { "items": [], "status": "not applicable" }, "doors": [ { "title": "Erdős's own cash prizes, listed per problem", "kind": "prize", "sourceId": "erdosproblems-site", "note": "Amounts and conditions on each problem page." } ], "priority": null, "flags": [ "ai-claim-on-desk" ], "sourceIds": [ "quanta-erdos-2026", "erdosproblems-site", "tao-ai-erdos-wiki", "erdos-728-writeup", "openai-unit-distance-2026", "alphaproof-nexus-coverage" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "p-vs-np", "hallId": "frontiers", "alsoIn": [], "title": "P vs NP and the limits of computation", "kind": "question", "status": "full", "problemId": "pnp", "posed": { "date": "1971", "precision": "year", "note": "Cook and Levin, independently." }, "hook": "Still open. This week a lab said its model knocked out a neighbouring hypothesis — and named the people who will check.", "wallText": [ "Can every problem whose answer can be checked quickly also be solved quickly? Posed in 1971, open since, a Clay Millennium Prize Problem. Around it sit stronger conjectures that hundreds of papers lean on, such as the Exponential Time Hypothesis, which says satisfiability cannot be solved in sub-exponential time.", "On 26 October 2026 OpenAI said an internal model had produced a disproof of the Exponential Time Hypothesis on 16 October, formalized in Lean the next day, and that the hypothesis's own authors and another expert would examine it. On this site that is level 2: formally checked by the claimant, independent review pending. A Lean proof certifies the statement that was written, not that the statement matches the conjecture people care about. If it holds, hundreds of hardness results will need re-reading; it would not, by itself, make any practical problem faster." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "Cook's 1971 paper, first page", "kind": "document", "source": "ACM (rights held) — use a photograph of the conference proceedings or text card", "licence": "to be determined", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "not-yet", "evidence": "P vs NP open; ETH disproof claimed and under review." }, "can": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" }, "do": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" }, "keep": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" } }, "firstUnlit": "know", "glyph": { "type": "ladder", "steps": [ "Open", "Partial results", "Claimed", "Checked", "Accepted", "Formalized" ], "current": 0, "label": "Open", "sub": "ETH disproof claimed, Oct 2026 (level 2)", "meaning": "Proof status of P vs NP itself." }, "condition": { "headline": "P vs NP open; a related hypothesis claimed false this week", "detail": "OpenAI, 26 Oct 2026: disproof of ETH found 16 Oct, Lean formalization 17 Oct; examiners named: Impagliazzo, Paturi (UC San Diego) and Williams (MIT). Also claimed: the local smoothing conjecture in every dimension (implying Kakeya and Stein restriction), and existence proofs for Yang–Mills and QCD to be examined by a group led by David Gross.", "trend": "Claims arriving faster than checks.", "sourceIds": [ "clay-pnp", "openai-oct-2026-qz", "openai-oct-2026-forklog" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "pnp-proof", "title": "A proof either way", "stages": [ "know" ], "text": "A proof that P ≠ NP changes little in practice; a constructive proof that P = NP would change almost everything.", "evidence": "Standard framing.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": null } ], "unlocks": [ { "title": "If ETH is false", "confidence": "speculative", "text": "Complexity lower bounds built on it need revisiting; practical algorithms do not follow automatically." } ], "approaches": [], "efforts": [ { "title": "Clay Millennium Prize", "span": "2000–", "note": "" } ], "resultIds": [ "eth-disproof-2026", "local-smoothing-2026", "yang-mills-existence-2026" ], "cast": [], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [ "Whether a formalized ETH statement matches the hypothesis as used in the literature." ], "setbacks": [], "maintenance": { "items": [], "status": "not applicable" }, "doors": [ { "title": "Clay Millennium Prize — US$1 million", "kind": "prize", "sourceId": "clay-rules", "note": "" } ], "priority": null, "flags": [ "ai-claim-on-desk" ], "sourceIds": [ "clay-pnp", "openai-oct-2026-qz", "openai-oct-2026-forklog", "lean-sorry-2026" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "matrix-multiplication", "hallId": "frontiers", "alsoIn": [], "title": "Faster matrix multiplication", "kind": "question", "status": "full", "problemId": "matrix", "posed": { "date": "1969", "precision": "year", "note": "Strassen's algorithm." }, "hook": "Fifty-six years after Strassen, a machine found a shorter way to multiply two 4×4 matrices — and then people made it better.", "wallText": [ "Volker Strassen showed in 1969 that multiplying matrices needs fewer multiplications than everyone assumed. For 4×4 complex matrices the best known count stood at 49 for fifty-six years. In May 2025 DeepMind's AlphaEvolve, an evolutionary search driven by a language model and an automatic checker, found 48. Because the result can be verified by direct computation, it was checked at once. Then human researchers extended it to a 48-multiplication algorithm with rational coefficients, which the original did not have. Both rows are on the claims desk; the chain is the point." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "A diagram of the 48-term decomposition", "kind": "document", "source": "arXiv (licence per paper)", "licence": "to be determined", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "An open research area; a scoped improvement does not settle it." }, "can": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" }, "do": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" }, "keep": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" } }, "firstUnlit": "know", "glyph": { "type": "none", "meaning": "No denominator: optimal counts are unknown." }, "condition": { "headline": "4×4 complex matrices: 48 scalar multiplications (May 2025), extended to rational coefficients", "detail": "AlphaEvolve matched or beat the state of the art on a number of matrix-multiplication targets; the 4×4 complex case was the first improvement over Strassen's bound in that setting after 56 years.", "trend": "Incremental; each case checkable by computation.", "sourceIds": [ "alpha-paper", "alphaevolve-rational" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "mm-optimality", "title": "Optimality unknown", "stages": [ "know" ], "text": "Lower bounds lag far behind the best constructions.", "evidence": "Standard framing.", "weakenedBy": [ "alphaevolve-48-2025" ], "disagreement": null } ], "unlocks": [ { "title": "Automatic verification", "confidence": "demonstrated", "text": "A proposed algorithm is checked by running it, which is why this is the easiest kind of AI claim to grade." } ], "approaches": [ { "title": "Evolutionary search with LLM proposals and automatic evaluation (AlphaEvolve)", "target": "Specific small cases", "evidence": "Paper, May 2025", "standing": "deployed" } ], "efforts": [], "resultIds": [ "alphaevolve-48-2025", "alphaevolve-rational-48" ], "cast": [ "strassen-volker" ], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [], "setbacks": [], "maintenance": { "items": [], "status": "not applicable" }, "doors": [], "priority": null, "flags": [], "sourceIds": [ "alpha-paper", "alpha-blog", "alphaevolve-rational" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "protein-structure", "hallId": "frontiers", "alsoIn": [ "health" ], "title": "Protein structure prediction", "kind": "question", "status": "full", "posed": { "date": "1972", "precision": "year", "note": "Anfinsen's thermodynamic hypothesis; the prediction problem took shape over the following decades." }, "hook": "A fifty-year question answered for most proteins. The medicines it was supposed to unlock are still mostly pending.", "wallText": [ "Can you work out a protein's shape from its sequence alone? For fifty years the honest answer was 'rarely'. In 2020 AlphaFold2 answered it for most proteins at the CASP14 blind assessment; the 2021 paper became one of the most cited ever; the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognised it. The database has structures for about 200 million proteins and has been used by more than two million researchers in 190 countries.", "This is the site's exemplar of a shared breakthrough — a Know-stage barrier removed with a huge fan-out of expected unlocks. It is also the exemplar of the distinction the site exists to make: the structures are deployed; a medicine attributable to them, measured in patients, is still pending. The fan-out is real and it is mostly expected, not yet demonstrated." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "A CASP14 target with the predicted and experimental structures overlaid", "kind": "document", "source": "CASP / the AlphaFold paper figures (licence per source)", "licence": "to be determined", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Structure prediction solved for most single-chain proteins; complexes and dynamics partial." }, "can": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "Downstream capabilities (drugs, enzymes) in development." }, "do": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "The structure database is deployed and free." }, "keep": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" } }, "firstUnlit": "can", "glyph": { "type": "ladder", "steps": [ "Open", "Partial results", "Claimed", "Checked", "Accepted", "Deployed" ], "current": 5, "label": "Deployed", "sub": "200M structures; 2M+ users", "meaning": "Status of the prediction question; benefit at the drug level is a separate row." }, "condition": { "headline": "Answered for most proteins; benefit at the medicine level pending", "detail": "Nobel 2024 citation: a fifty-year-old problem; structures for virtually all 200 million known proteins; used by more than two million people from 190 countries.", "trend": "Fan-out of expected unlocks; few demonstrated at the benefit level.", "sourceIds": [ "nobel-chem-2024" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "ps-dynamics", "title": "Complexes, dynamics and disorder", "stages": [ "know" ], "text": "Single static structures are not the whole story.", "evidence": "Standard framing.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": null }, { "id": "ps-to-medicine", "title": "From structure to medicine", "stages": [ "can" ], "text": "Knowing a shape is early in a drug's road.", "evidence": "No approved medicine yet attributed to AlphaFold structures (editorial reading).", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": "How much credit structure prediction should get in any eventual drug." } ], "unlocks": [ { "title": "Structure-based drug design, enzyme design, antibiotic-resistance research", "confidence": "expected", "text": "Large fan-out; demonstrated at the research level, not at the patient level." } ], "approaches": [ { "title": "Deep learning on evolutionary and structural data (AlphaFold2 and successors)", "target": "Structure from sequence", "evidence": "CASP14; peer review; Nobel", "standing": "deployed" } ], "efforts": [ { "title": "CASP (since 1994) and the Protein Data Bank", "span": "1971– / 1994–", "note": "The shared infrastructure that made verification possible — results in their own right." } ], "resultIds": [ "alphafold2-2020" ], "cast": [ "anfinsen-christian", "jumper-john", "hassabis-demis", "baker-david" ], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [ "casp14-plot" ], "disagreement": [ "How to credit a tool versus the experimental data it learned from (PDB)." ], "setbacks": [], "maintenance": { "items": [ "Database upkeep", "Retraining as data grows" ], "status": "maintained (DeepMind/EMBL-EBI)" }, "doors": [], "priority": null, "flags": [ "shared-breakthrough" ], "sourceIds": [ "nobel-chem-2024" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "poincare", "hallId": "frontiers", "alsoIn": [], "title": "Poincaré Conjecture", "kind": "question", "status": "finished", "problemId": "poincare", "posed": { "date": "1904", "precision": "year", "note": "Poincaré, 1904." }, "hook": "Posed 1904, proved 2002–03 by a human who declined the prize.", "wallText": [ "The only Millennium Prize Problem that has been solved, by Grigori Perelman in preprints of 2002–2003 building on Richard Hamilton's Ricci flow, recognised by Clay in 2010. It is on this site as the baseline a human solution sets: proposed, checked over years by several teams, accepted. The record keeps the proposal date and the recognition date apart." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "The 2002 arXiv preprint, first page", "kind": "document", "source": "arXiv", "licence": "per arXiv", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "settled", "evidence": "Proved; accepted." }, "can": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" }, "do": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" }, "keep": { "state": "na", "evidence": "" } }, "firstUnlit": null, "glyph": { "type": "ladder", "steps": [ "Open", "Partial results", "Claimed", "Checked", "Accepted", "Formalized" ], "current": 4, "label": "Accepted", "sub": "Clay recognition 2010", "meaning": "Not yet machine-formalized." }, "condition": { "headline": "Solved (human); accepted", "detail": "See the Codex evidence record for the dated milestones.", "trend": "Done.", "sourceIds": [ "clay-poincare" ] }, "barriers": [], "unlocks": [], "approaches": [], "efforts": [], "resultIds": [ "poincare-perelman" ], "cast": [ "perelman-grigori", "hamilton-richard" ], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [], "setbacks": [], "maintenance": { "items": [], "status": "done is done" }, "doors": [], "priority": null, "flags": [ "finished" ], "sourceIds": [ "clay-poincare" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "antisemitism", "hallId": "peace", "alsoIn": [], "title": "Antisemitism", "kind": "problem", "status": "full", "posed": null, "hook": "Down a third in 2025 after two record years — and the most violent year on record. Both are true.", "wallText": [ "The oldest hatred does not have a denominator. What it has are counts, and counts move with reporting as much as with reality, which is why the measurement dispute sits at the top of this exhibit rather than in a footnote. In the United States the ADL recorded 6,274 antisemitic incidents in 2025, down a third from the record 9,354 of 2024 and still the third-highest year since the audit began in 1979. Harassment and vandalism fell sharply; assaults rose to a record 203, and 2025 saw the first fatal antisemitic attacks on American soil since 2019.", "Even the definition is contested: the IHRA working definition of 2016 and the Jerusalem Declaration of 2021 disagree about where criticism of Israel ends and antisemitism begins. The site shows both and does not adjudicate. Interventions have social-science-grade evidence — intergroup contact is the best-supported — and the gains here are norms and institutions, which is why this exhibit lives in Keep." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "A record, not a vision: a historical document or a memorial photograph, to be chosen with the community", "kind": "document", "source": "to be sourced", "licence": "to be determined", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "contested", "evidence": "Definitions (IHRA 2016 vs JDA 2021) and measurement (reporting rates) are contested; causal models have uneven evidence." }, "can": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "Intergroup contact has robust evidence (Pettigrew & Tropp 2006); education programmes mixed; security funding and hate-crime law reduce harm, not hatred." }, "do": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "Programmes exist; reach and effect are unevenly measured." }, "keep": { "state": "regressing", "evidence": "The post-October-2023 surge shows how fast norms regress; 2025 remains far above pre-2023 levels." } }, "firstUnlit": "know", "glyph": { "type": "trend", "series": [ { "x": "2019", "y": 2107 }, { "x": "2022", "y": 3698 }, { "x": "2023", "y": 8873 }, { "x": "2024", "y": 9354 }, { "x": "2025", "y": 6274 } ], "label": "6,274", "sub": "US incidents, 2025 (ADL)", "confidence": "contested — definitions and reporting rates", "meaning": "Recorded incidents, not prevalence. Pre-2023 points are from earlier ADL audits and are shown for shape; they will be re-sourced individually." }, "condition": { "headline": "6,274 US incidents in 2025: −33% on 2024, third-highest since 1979", "detail": "Harassment 4,003 (from 6,552); vandalism 2,068 (from 2,606); assault 203 (from 196), with assaults involving a deadly weapon up from 23 to 32; campus incidents 583 (from 1,694, −66%); K-12 schools 825 (from 860). Incidents in all 50 states; New York 1,160, California 817, New Jersey 687. 45% of incidents related to Israel or Zionism (58% in 2024). The ADL notes incident counts are affected by reporting.", "trend": "Down on the year; up on the decade.", "sourceIds": [ "adl-audit-2025" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "as-definition", "title": "Contested definition", "stages": [ "know" ], "text": "IHRA (2016) and the Jerusalem Declaration (2021) draw the line between criticism of Israel and antisemitism differently; data collected under different definitions are not comparable.", "evidence": "The two texts.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": "Which definition institutions should adopt." }, { "id": "as-measurement", "title": "Measurement", "stages": [ "know" ], "text": "Incident counts track reporting as much as prevalence; OSCE/ODIHR warns its cross-national data are not comparable because recording and methods differ.", "evidence": "ODIHR reporting notes.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": "Surveys of attitudes versus incident counts." }, { "id": "as-transmission", "title": "Transmission and amplification", "stages": [ "can", "keep" ], "text": "Ideological transmission, online amplification and conflict spillover; AI-generated content is a new amplifier.", "evidence": "Uneven; vendor-reported for the AI part.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": null } ], "unlocks": [ { "title": "Intergroup contact at scale", "confidence": "expected", "text": "Best-supported intervention in the literature; scaling evidence thin.", "resultId": null }, { "title": "Comparable measurement", "confidence": "expected", "text": "Agreed recording standards would make the trend legible." } ], "approaches": [ { "title": "Intergroup contact programmes", "target": "Prejudice", "evidence": "Meta-analysis (2006)", "standing": "partly-delivered" }, { "title": "Education programmes", "target": "Prejudice", "evidence": "Mixed", "standing": "partly-delivered" }, { "title": "Security funding; hate-crime law", "target": "Harm, not hatred", "evidence": "Reduces harm; does not reduce prejudice", "standing": "deployed" }, { "title": "Content moderation (incl. AI detection)", "target": "Amplification", "evidence": "Vendor-reported; not independently measured", "standing": "contested" } ], "efforts": [ { "title": "ADL Audit (since 1979); OSCE/ODIHR hate-crime reporting", "span": "ongoing", "note": "Measurement efforts, not interventions." } ], "resultIds": [], "cast": [], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [ "Which definition to use (IHRA vs JDA vs Nexus).", "Whether counts or attitude surveys better track the problem.", "Whether security and law change hatred or only its expression." ], "setbacks": [ { "date": "2023-10", "text": "A surge in incidents after the 7 October attacks and the war that followed." }, { "date": "2025", "text": "Record assaults; first fatal attacks on US soil since 2019." } ], "maintenance": { "items": [ "Norms and institutions that need constant upkeep", "Comparable measurement year on year" ], "status": "regressing" }, "doors": [ { "title": "ADL audit data; ODIHR hate-crime data", "kind": "data", "sourceId": "adl-audit-2025", "note": "The counts behind the trend, with their caveats." } ], "priority": { "scale": 55, "urgency": 70, "tractability": 30, "neglect": 40, "leverage": 50, "notes": { "scale": "contested measure", "urgency": "violence rising", "tractability": "Know contested", "neglect": "moderate", "leverage": "shares mechanisms with other hatreds" } }, "flags": [ "contested-measure", "regressing" ], "sourceIds": [ "adl-audit-2025", "ihra-definition", "jda-2021", "osce-hatecrime", "pettigrew-tropp-2006" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "armed-conflict", "hallId": "peace", "alsoIn": [ "risks" ], "title": "Armed conflict", "kind": "problem", "status": "full", "posed": null, "hook": "More wars in 2025 than in any year since 1946. Progress has a sign.", "wallText": [ "The Uppsala Conflict Data Program has counted wars since 1946. In 2025 it recorded 65 conflicts involving a state, the most ever, 13 of them wars with more than a thousand battle deaths — the highest number since 1992 — and eight between states, double the year before and quadruple 2023. About 245,000 people died in battle-related violence, the third-deadliest year since the Cold War; Russia's war in Ukraine accounted for about 62% of battle deaths, and the massacres in El Fasher drove one-sided violence in Sudan.", "This exhibit is here to teach one thing: the site will show a trend going the wrong way as plainly as one going right. The evidence for what works is social-science-grade — peacekeeping deployments are associated with fewer civilian deaths — and the gains are institutional. Keep is the live light." ], "heroRecord": { "title": "A record, not a vision: UCDP's own conflict map or a documentary photograph with consent", "kind": "document", "source": "UCDP (licence per dataset)", "licence": "to be determined", "status": "placeholder" }, "lights": { "know": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "Measurement is strong (UCDP since 1946); causes and prevention are contested." }, "can": { "state": "partial", "evidence": "Peacekeeping, mediation and sanctions have evidence of effect in some conditions." }, "do": { "state": "not-yet", "evidence": "The institutions that prevent and end wars are under strain." }, "keep": { "state": "regressing", "evidence": "Conflicts and interstate wars at post-1946 highs." } }, "firstUnlit": "know", "glyph": { "type": "trend", "series": [ { "x": "2021", "y": 54 }, { "x": "2022", "y": 55 }, { "x": "2023", "y": 59 }, { "x": "2024", "y": 61 }, { "x": "2025", "y": 65 } ], "label": "65", "sub": "state-based conflicts, 2025 (UCDP)", "confidence": "high — long-run dataset; 2025 preliminary", "meaning": "Counts of conflicts involving a state; 2021–2024 points from UCDP's series and shown for shape, to be re-sourced individually." }, "condition": { "headline": "65 state-based conflicts in 2025, the most since 1946; ~245,000 battle-related deaths", "detail": "13 wars (≥1,000 battle deaths), highest since 1992; 8 interstate conflicts (2 in 2023); ~153,000 battle deaths in state-based conflicts; non-state conflicts 75 with ~14,500 deaths, the lowest since 2013; Russia–Ukraine at least 94,700 deaths (~62% of the total); Sudan's El Fasher massacres ~60,000 in one-sided violence.", "trend": "Rising count; very high lethality.", "sourceIds": [ "ucdp-2026", "prio-trends-2026" ] }, "barriers": [ { "id": "ac-institutions", "title": "Weakened institutions", "stages": [ "do", "keep" ], "text": "Mediation, peacekeeping and arms control are under strain.", "evidence": "UCDP analysts' commentary on 'changes in the global security order'.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": null }, { "id": "ac-causes", "title": "Contested causes", "stages": [ "know" ], "text": "Economic, ideological, territorial and climate drivers are disputed and vary by conflict.", "evidence": "Literature.", "weakenedBy": [], "disagreement": "Weight of each driver." } ], "unlocks": [ { "title": "Peacekeeping deployments", "confidence": "demonstrated", "text": "Associated with reduced civilian killing in the literature (e.g., Hultman, Kathman & Shannon 2013) — to be re-sourced here." } ], "approaches": [ { "title": "UN and regional peacekeeping", "target": "Civilian protection; ceasefire durability", "evidence": "Observational studies", "standing": "partly-delivered" }, { "title": "Mediation and ceasefire monitoring", "target": "Ending wars", "evidence": "Case-dependent", "standing": "partly-delivered" }, { "title": "Sanctions and arms control", "target": "Capacity to fight", "evidence": "Mixed", "standing": "contested" } ], "efforts": [ { "title": "UCDP (Uppsala) and PRIO", "span": "1946–", "note": "The measurement." }, { "title": "UN peace operations", "span": "1948–", "note": "" } ], "resultIds": [], "cast": [], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [ "Whether the interstate rise is a trend or a cluster.", "The effect of sanctions." ], "setbacks": [ { "date": "2025", "text": "Record number of conflicts; interstate conflicts doubled for the second year." } ], "maintenance": { "items": [ "Institutions that end and prevent wars", "Data collection that keeps the trend legible" ], "status": "regressing" }, "doors": [ { "title": "UCDP open datasets", "kind": "data", "sourceId": "ucdp-2026", "note": "The series behind the trend." } ], "priority": { "scale": 95, "urgency": 90, "tractability": 20, "neglect": 30, "leverage": 80, "notes": { "scale": "~245,000 battle deaths in 2025", "urgency": "rising", "tractability": "institutional", "neglect": "attention high, leverage low", "leverage": "war drives famine, disease, displacement" } }, "flags": [ "regressing" ], "sourceIds": [ "ucdp-2026", "prio-trends-2026" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "pandemic-preparedness", "hallId": "risks", "alsoIn": [ "health" ], "title": "Pandemic preparedness", "kind": "problem", "status": "under-investigation", "posed": null, "hook": "Under investigation — with one lesson already on the desk.", "wallText": [ "Sources are being gathered. One result is already on the claims desk because it is the base rate every AI health claim should be read against: a 2021 review of 62 published machine-learning models for detecting COVID-19 from imaging found none fit for clinical use." ], "heroRecord": null, "lights": null, "firstUnlit": null, "glyph": { "type": "none" }, "condition": null, "barriers": [], "unlocks": [], "approaches": [], "efforts": [], "resultIds": [ "covid-ml-review-2021" ], "cast": [], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [], "setbacks": [], "maintenance": null, "doors": [], "priority": null, "flags": [ "under-investigation" ], "sourceIds": [ "roberts-2021" ], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "security-keep", "hallId": "risks", "alsoIn": [], "title": "Security that never stays fixed", "kind": "problem", "status": "under-investigation", "posed": null, "hook": "Under investigation. The clearest Keep problem there is — and the one with the most doors in.", "wallText": [ "Network and software security is never finished; every gain decays as systems change. This exhibit will list the doors — bug-bounty programmes, coordinated-disclosure channels, open security datasets — with sources, as a test of the 'doors' idea. Nothing is listed until it is sourced." ], "heroRecord": null, "lights": null, "firstUnlit": null, "glyph": { "type": "none" }, "condition": null, "barriers": [], "unlocks": [], "approaches": [], "efforts": [], "resultIds": [], "cast": [], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [], "setbacks": [], "maintenance": null, "doors": [ { "title": "Bug-bounty and coordinated-disclosure programmes", "kind": "open-call", "sourceId": null, "note": "To be listed with sources; nothing is linked until it is." } ], "priority": null, "flags": [ "under-investigation", "doors-pilot" ], "sourceIds": [], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "extreme-poverty", "hallId": "poverty", "alsoIn": [], "title": "Extreme poverty", "kind": "problem", "status": "under-investigation", "posed": null, "hook": "Under investigation.", "wallText": [ "Sources are being gathered. Poverty already appears as a shared barrier on the tuberculosis exhibit." ], "heroRecord": null, "lights": null, "firstUnlit": null, "glyph": { "type": "none" }, "condition": null, "barriers": [], "unlocks": [], "approaches": [], "efforts": [], "resultIds": [], "cast": [], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [], "setbacks": [], "maintenance": null, "doors": [], "priority": null, "flags": [ "under-investigation" ], "sourceIds": [], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "safe-water", "hallId": "food-water", "alsoIn": [], "title": "Safely managed drinking water", "kind": "problem", "status": "under-investigation", "posed": null, "hook": "Under investigation.", "wallText": [ "Sources are being gathered (WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme)." ], "heroRecord": null, "lights": null, "firstUnlit": null, "glyph": { "type": "none" }, "condition": null, "barriers": [], "unlocks": [], "approaches": [], "efforts": [], "resultIds": [], "cast": [], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [], "setbacks": [], "maintenance": null, "doors": [], "priority": null, "flags": [ "under-investigation" ], "sourceIds": [], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" }, { "id": "methane", "hallId": "climate", "alsoIn": [], "title": "Methane", "kind": "problem", "status": "under-investigation", "posed": null, "hook": "Under investigation.", "wallText": [ "Sources are being gathered (IEA Global Methane Tracker; satellite detection programmes)." ], "heroRecord": null, "lights": null, "firstUnlit": null, "glyph": { "type": "none" }, "condition": null, "barriers": [], "unlocks": [], "approaches": [], "efforts": [], "resultIds": [], "cast": [], "moreCast": [], "objectIds": [], "disagreement": [], "setbacks": [], "maintenance": null, "doors": [], "priority": null, "flags": [ "under-investigation" ], "sourceIds": [], "reviewedAt": "2026-10-30" } ], "results": [ { "id": "tb-cad-who-2021", "title": "Computer-aided detection software for TB screening", "exhibitIds": [ "tuberculosis" ], "claimant": "Multiple vendors; WHO guideline", "date": "2021", "level": 5, "checkedBy": "WHO Technical Advisory Group; FIND independent validation (2025 policy statement: six products met WHO performance standards for people aged 15+)", "aiRole": "Reads chest radiographs; found by AI, verified by humans", "aiClass": "A", "model": "Several commercial products; versions per product", "humans": "Guideline development; programme calibration; follow-up diagnostic testing", "disclosed": { "compute": null, "cost": "per-screen prices vary; not disclosed here", "energy": null, "time": null }, "benefit": "Yield measured in screening programmes (level 6 partial)", "builtOn": [ "Röntgen's chest radiography (1895)" ], "status": "accepted", "notes": "WHO does not yet recommend CAD for children and adolescents under 15.", "sourceIds": [ "who-cad-2025" ] }, { "id": "tb-rapid-molecular", "title": "Rapid molecular diagnostics for TB and rifampicin resistance", "exhibitIds": [ "tuberculosis" ], "claimant": "WHO recommendation", "date": "2010s", "level": 5, "checkedBy": "WHO guideline process", "aiRole": "None", "aiClass": null, "model": null, "humans": "Diagnostics development and programme roll-out", "disclosed": { "compute": null, "cost": null, "energy": null, "time": null }, "benefit": "Programme data (not shown until sourced)", "builtOn": [], "status": "accepted", "notes": "Listed for completeness of the case-finding barrier; figures to be sourced.", "sourceIds": [ "who-tb-2025" ] }, { "id": "tb-mdr-regimen-2022", "title": "All-oral six-month regimen for drug-resistant TB", "exhibitIds": [ "tuberculosis" ], "claimant": "WHO guideline, 2022", "date": "2022", "level": 5, "checkedBy": "Trials; WHO guideline development group", "aiRole": "None", "aiClass": null, "model": null, "humans": "Trialists; guideline group", "disclosed": { "compute": null, "cost": null, "energy": null, "time": null }, "benefit": "Programme outcomes (to be sourced)", "builtOn": [], "status": "accepted", "notes": "Year and guideline to be linked to the specific WHO module.", "sourceIds": [ "who-tb-2025" ] }, { "id": "m72-phase3", "title": "M72/AS01E tuberculosis vaccine candidate — Phase III", "exhibitIds": [ "tuberculosis" ], "claimant": "Trial sponsors", "date": "ongoing", "level": 1, "checkedBy": "— (trial not complete)", "aiRole": "None", "aiClass": null, "model": null, "humans": "Trialists", "disclosed": { "compute": null, "cost": null, "energy": null, "time": null }, "benefit": "None yet", "builtOn": [], "status": "documented", "notes": "Registry and sponsor to be linked.", "sourceIds": [ "who-tb-2025" ] }, { "id": "rentosertib-phase3", "title": "Rentosertib, AI-designed TNIK inhibitor for IPF — Phase III started", "exhibitIds": [ "ipf" ], "claimant": "Insilico Medicine", "date": "2026-07", "level": 1, "checkedBy": "— (trial not complete; 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The cure existed and still came too late.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "tuberculosis", "role": "suffered", "light": "do" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-depiction", "sourceNote": "1940s photograph — public-domain status differs by country; rights check required, else text card" }, "appearsIn": [ "tuberculosis" ] }, { "id": "chekhov-anton", "name": "Anton Chekhov", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1860", "died": "1904" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "A doctor and a writer, dead of tuberculosis before anyone knew how to stop it.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "tuberculosis", "role": "suffered", "light": "can" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-depiction" }, "appearsIn": [ "tuberculosis" ] }, { "id": "keats-john", "name": "John Keats", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1795", "died": "1821" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "Died of tuberculosis at 25, sixty years before anyone knew what it was.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "tuberculosis", "role": "suffered", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-depiction" }, "appearsIn": [ "tuberculosis" ] }, { "id": "farmer-paul", "name": "Paul Farmer", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1959", "died": "2022" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "Treated multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Peru and Haiti when policy said it was too expensive; the policy changed.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "tuberculosis", "role": "deployed", "light": "do" }, { "exhibitId": "tuberculosis", "role": "advocated", "light": "keep" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-photo", "sourceNote": "Partners In Health (permission) or a Commons CC photo — treated, never generated" }, "appearsIn": [ "tuberculosis" ] }, { "id": "hopkins-donald", "name": "Donald R. 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No known likeness.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "vaccines", "role": "documented", "light": "know" }, { "exhibitId": "smallpox", "role": "documented", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "no-likeness" }, "appearsIn": [ "vaccines", "smallpox" ] }, { "id": "montagu-mary", "name": "Lady Mary Wortley Montagu", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1689", "died": "1762" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "Brought variolation from Constantinople to England and had her own children inoculated.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "vaccines", "role": "advocated", "light": "can" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-depiction", "sourceNote": "portrait paintings, public domain" }, "appearsIn": [ "vaccines", "smallpox" ] }, { "id": "jenner-edward", "name": "Edward Jenner", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1749", "died": "1823" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "Inoculated James Phipps with cowpox on 14 May 1796; gave us the word 'vaccine'.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "vaccines", "role": "invented", "light": "can" }, { "exhibitId": "smallpox", "role": "invented", "light": "can" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-depiction", "sourceNote": "portrait (e.g. James Northcote, 1803), public domain" }, "appearsIn": [ "vaccines", "smallpox" ] }, { "id": "phipps-james", "name": "James Phipps", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1788", "died": "1853" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "The eight-year-old.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "vaccines", "role": "suffered", "light": "can" } ], "image": { "status": "no-likeness", "sourceNote": "likeness uncertain; text card" }, "appearsIn": [ "vaccines" ] }, { "id": "pasteur-louis", "name": "Louis Pasteur", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1822", "died": "1895" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "Attenuated vaccines; the rabies vaccine given to Joseph Meister in 1885.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "vaccines", "role": "invented", "light": "can" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-depiction" }, "appearsIn": [ "vaccines" ] }, { "id": "salk-jonas", "name": "Jonas Salk", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1914", "died": "1995" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "Inactivated polio vaccine; the 1954 field trial, announced effective on 12 April 1955.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "polio", "role": "invented", "light": "can" }, { "exhibitId": "vaccines", "role": "invented", "light": "can" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-depiction", "sourceNote": "1950s photograph — check the specific file's PD rationale" }, "appearsIn": [ "polio", "vaccines" ] }, { "id": "sabin-albert", "name": "Albert Sabin", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1906", "died": "1993" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "Oral polio vaccine, the tool of the eradication campaigns.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "polio", "role": "invented", "light": "do" }, { "exhibitId": "vaccines", "role": "invented", "light": "do" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-depiction" }, "appearsIn": [ "polio", "vaccines" ] }, { "id": "hilleman-maurice", "name": "Maurice Hilleman", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1919", "died": "2005" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "Developed many of the vaccines in routine use, including measles, mumps and hepatitis B.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "vaccines", "role": "invented", "light": "can" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-depiction", "sourceNote": "check rights (Merck / NLM)" }, "appearsIn": [ "vaccines" ] }, { "id": "henderson-da", "name": "D. A. Henderson", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1928", "died": "2016" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "Directed WHO's intensified smallpox eradication programme (1967–1977).", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "smallpox", "role": "organized", "light": "do" }, { "exhibitId": "vaccines", "role": "organized", "light": "do" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-photo", "sourceNote": "WHO / CDC PHIL — check" }, "appearsIn": [ "smallpox", "vaccines" ] }, { "id": "foege-bill", "name": "William H. Foege", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1936", "died": "2026" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "The ring-vaccination strategy that finished smallpox; the Carter Center's first executive director. Died January 2026.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "smallpox", "role": "organized", "light": "do" }, { "exhibitId": "vaccines", "role": "organized", "light": "do" }, { "exhibitId": "guinea-worm", "role": "organized", "light": "do" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-photo", "sourceNote": "CDC / Carter Center — check" }, "appearsIn": [ "smallpox", "vaccines", "guinea-worm" ] }, { "id": "kariko-katalin", "name": "Katalin Karikó", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1955", "died": null }, "living": true, "oneLine": "mRNA modification work (2005) that made mRNA vaccines possible; 2023 Nobel Prize.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "vaccines", "role": "discovered", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "name-only", "sourceNote": "living: licensed photograph, treated, or none" }, "appearsIn": [ "vaccines" ] }, { "id": "weissman-drew", "name": "Drew Weissman", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1959", "died": null }, "living": true, "oneLine": "mRNA modification work with Karikó; 2023 Nobel Prize.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "vaccines", "role": "discovered", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "name-only" }, "appearsIn": [ "vaccines" ] }, { "id": "riemann-bernhard", "name": "Bernhard Riemann", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1826", "died": "1866" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "Posed the hypothesis in an 1859 paper; died seven years later.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "riemann", "role": "posed", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-depiction" }, "appearsIn": [ "riemann" ] }, { "id": "hardy-gh", "name": "G. H. Hardy", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1877", "died": "1947" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "Proved infinitely many zeros lie on the critical line (1914).", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "riemann", "role": "proved", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-depiction" }, "appearsIn": [ "riemann" ] }, { "id": "conrey-brian", "name": "Brian Conrey", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1955", "died": null }, "living": true, "oneLine": "Proved more than two-fifths of the zeros lie on the line (1989).", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "riemann", "role": "proved", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "name-only" }, "appearsIn": [ "riemann" ] }, { "id": "erdos-paul", "name": "Paul Erdős", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1913", "died": "1996" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "Posed thousands of problems and attached cash prizes to many of them.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "erdos-problems", "role": "posed", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-depiction" }, "appearsIn": [ "erdos-problems" ] }, { "id": "bloom-thomas", "name": "Thomas Bloom", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": null, "died": null }, "living": true, "oneLine": "Built and maintains the Erdős problems database (2023–); called the October 2025 claims 'a dramatic misrepresentation'.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "erdos-problems", "role": "organized", "light": "know" }, { "resultId": "unit-distance-2026", "role": "verified", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "name-only" }, "appearsIn": [ "erdos-problems" ] }, { "id": "tao-terence", "name": "Terence Tao", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1975", "died": null }, "living": true, "oneLine": "Verified Erdős #728; keeps the 'AI contributions' wiki whose disclaimers are this site's house style.", "roles": [ { "resultId": "erdos-728-2026", "role": "verified", "light": "know" }, { "exhibitId": "erdos-problems", "role": "documented", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "name-only", "sourceNote": "living: a CC-licensed conference photograph, treated, if cleared" }, "appearsIn": [ "erdos-problems" ] }, { "id": "alon-noga", "name": "Noga Alon", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1956", "died": null }, "living": true, "oneLine": "Checked the unit-distance disproof; has solved dozens of Erdős problems over a career.", "roles": [ { "resultId": "unit-distance-2026", "role": "verified", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "name-only" }, "appearsIn": [ "erdos-problems" ] }, { "id": "gowers-timothy", "name": "Timothy Gowers", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1963", "died": null }, "living": true, "oneLine": "Checked the unit-distance disproof and judged it of the standard of the strongest journals.", "roles": [ { "resultId": "unit-distance-2026", "role": "verified", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "name-only" }, "appearsIn": [ "erdos-problems" ] }, { "id": "perelman-grigori", "name": "Grigori Perelman", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1966", "died": null }, "living": true, "oneLine": "Proved the Poincaré Conjecture (2002–03); declined the Fields Medal and the Millennium Prize.", "roles": [ { "resultId": "poincare-perelman", "role": "proved", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "name-only" }, "appearsIn": [ "poincare" ] }, { "id": "hamilton-richard", "name": "Richard Hamilton", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1943", "died": "2024" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "Ricci flow, the programme Perelman completed.", "roles": [ { "resultId": "poincare-perelman", "role": "built-on", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-photo" }, "appearsIn": [ "poincare" ] }, { "id": "strassen-volker", "name": "Volker Strassen", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1936", "died": null }, "living": true, "oneLine": "Showed in 1969 that matrix multiplication needs fewer multiplications than assumed; the bound AlphaEvolve improved on 56 years later.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "matrix-multiplication", "role": "posed", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "name-only" }, "appearsIn": [ "matrix-multiplication" ] }, { "id": "anfinsen-christian", "name": "Christian Anfinsen", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1916", "died": "1995" }, "living": false, "oneLine": "The thermodynamic hypothesis (1972 Nobel): a protein's sequence determines its structure — the premise of the prediction problem.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "protein-structure", "role": "posed", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "pending-depiction" }, "appearsIn": [ "protein-structure" ] }, { "id": "jumper-john", "name": "John Jumper", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1985", "died": null }, "living": true, "oneLine": "Led AlphaFold2; 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Hassabis.", "roles": [ { "resultId": "alphafold2-2020", "role": "invented", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "name-only" }, "appearsIn": [ "protein-structure" ] }, { "id": "hassabis-demis", "name": "Demis Hassabis", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1976", "died": null }, "living": true, "oneLine": "DeepMind; 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Jumper.", "roles": [ { "resultId": "alphafold2-2020", "role": "organized", "light": "know" } ], "image": { "status": "name-only" }, "appearsIn": [ "protein-structure" ] }, { "id": "baker-david", "name": "David Baker", "kind": "person", "lived": { "born": "1962", "died": null }, "living": true, "oneLine": "Computational protein design; the other half of the 2024 prize.", "roles": [ { "exhibitId": "protein-structure", "role": "invented", "light": "can" } ], "image": { "status": "name-only" }, "appearsIn": [ "protein-structure" ] } ], "objects": [ { "id": "koch-drawings-1882", "title": "Koch's drawings of the tubercle bacillus (1882)", "oneLine": "The illustrations that accompanied the announcement.", "appearsIn": [ "tuberculosis" ], "image": { "status": "pending-record", "sourceNote": "U.S. National Library of Medicine — public domain, to be confirmed" } }, { "id": "koch-microscope", "title": "Koch's microscope", "oneLine": "The instrument, in the Robert Koch Institute's collection.", "appearsIn": [ "tuberculosis" ], "image": { "status": "pending-record", "sourceNote": "Robert Koch Institute — permission" } }, { "id": "streptomycin-vial", "title": "A streptomycin vial, 1940s", "oneLine": "The first drug that cured tuberculosis.", "appearsIn": [ "tuberculosis" ], "image": { "status": "pending-record", "sourceNote": "Science Museum Group — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (note the NC term)" } }, { "id": "early-chest-radiograph", "title": "An early chest radiograph", "oneLine": "Röntgen's image becomes a screening tool.", "appearsIn": [ "tuberculosis" ], "image": { "status": "pending-record", "sourceNote": "Wellcome Collection — public domain, to be confirmed" } }, { "id": "cad-cxr-2025", "title": "A CAD-annotated chest X-ray (schematic)", "oneLine": "What the AI marks on the same image, 130 years later.", "appearsIn": [ "tuberculosis" ], "image": { "status": "pending-record", "sourceNote": "Vendor or WHO publication by permission, or a schematic drawn for the site" } }, { "id": "gw-pipe-filter", "title": "A Guinea worm pipe filter", "oneLine": "A straw with a mesh; one of the tools that is ending a disease without a drug.", "appearsIn": [ "guinea-worm" ], "image": { "status": "pending-record", "sourceNote": "Carter Center (permission) or CDC PHIL" } }, { "id": "lean-proof-728", "title": "The Lean proof of Erdős #728", "oneLine": "A formal statement a computer checked; a screenshot of the file.", "appearsIn": [ "erdos-problems" ], "image": { "status": "pending-record", "sourceNote": "GitHub — licence per repository" } }, { "id": "casp14-plot", "title": "A CASP14 target overlay", "oneLine": "Predicted structure over the experimental one.", "appearsIn": [ "protein-structure" ], "image": { "status": "pending-record", "sourceNote": "CASP / paper figures — licence per source" } } ], "timeline": [ { "exhibitId": "smallpox", "label": "Smallpox", "from": 1796, "to": 1980, "heldTo": 2026, "marks": [ { "year": 1796, "label": "Jenner's vaccine", "kind": "posed" }, { "year": 1967, "label": "WHO intensified programme", "kind": "verified" }, { "year": 1977, "label": "last natural case", "kind": "verified" }, { "year": 1980, "label": "certified eradicated", "kind": "end" } ], "years": "184 to eradication · held 46" }, { "exhibitId": "riemann", "label": "Riemann Hypothesis", "from": 1859, "to": null, "marks": [ { "year": 1859, "label": "posed", "kind": "posed" }, { "year": 1914, "label": "infinitely many zeros on the line", "kind": "verified" }, { "year": 1989, "label": "more than 40%", "kind": "verified" }, { "year": 2021, "label": "verified to 3·10¹²", "kind": "verified" } ], "years": "167 open · no AI mark" }, { "exhibitId": "navier-stokes", "label": "Navier–Stokes regularity", "from": 1845, "to": null, "marks": [ { "year": 1845, "label": "equations (Stokes)", "kind": "posed" }, { "year": 1934, "label": "Leray weak solutions", "kind": "verified" }, { "year": 2025, "label": "unstable singularities, numerical (AI)", "kind": "claimed" } ], "years": "181 open · claim in band" }, { "exhibitId": "tuberculosis", "label": "Tuberculosis", "from": 1882, "to": null, "marks": [ { "year": 1882, "label": "pathogen identified", "kind": "posed" }, { "year": 1944, "label": "streptomycin — curable", "kind": "verified" }, { "year": 2015, "label": "End TB Strategy", "kind": "verified" }, { "year": 2021, "label": "AI-read X-ray in guidelines", "kind": "verified" } ], "years": "144 · cure for 82 · stuck on Do" }, { "exhibitId": "protein-structure", "label": "Protein structure prediction", "from": 1972, "to": 2020, "heldTo": 2026, "marks": [ { "year": 1972, "label": "Anfinsen's hypothesis", "kind": "posed" }, { "year": 1994, "label": "CASP begins", "kind": "verified" }, { "year": 2020, "label": "AlphaFold2 at CASP14", "kind": "end" }, { "year": 2024, "label": "Nobel · benefit pending", "kind": "verified" } ], "years": "48 to answer · benefit pending" }, { "exhibitId": "polio", "label": "Polio", "from": 1955, "to": null, "marks": [ { "year": 1955, "label": "Salk vaccine", "kind": "posed" }, { "year": 1988, "label": "eradication initiative", "kind": "verified" }, { "year": 2015, "label": "type 2 gone", "kind": "verified" }, { "year": 2019, "label": "type 3 gone", "kind": "verified" } ], "years": "71 since vaccine · type 1 remains" }, { "exhibitId": "erdos-problems", "label": "Erdős unit-distance conjecture", "from": 1946, "to": 2026, "marks": [ { "year": 1946, "label": "posed", "kind": "posed" }, { "year": 2026, "label": "counterexample (AI) · checked by Alon, Gowers and others", "kind": "end" } ], "years": "80 quiet, then done" }, { "exhibitId": "erdos-problems", "label": "Erdős problem #728", "from": 1975, "to": 2026, "marks": [ { "year": 1975, "label": "posed", "kind": "posed" }, { "year": 2026, "label": "Lean proof (AI) · verified by Tao", "kind": "end" } ], "years": "51 quiet, then done" }, { "exhibitId": "guinea-worm", "label": "Guinea worm disease", "from": 1986, "to": null, "marks": [ { "year": 1986, "label": "campaign begins · 3.5M cases a year", "kind": "posed" }, { "year": 2025, "label": "10 human cases", "kind": "verified" } ], "years": "39 campaign · 99.99% down" }, { "exhibitId": "fusion", "label": "Fusion power", "from": 1951, "to": null, "marks": [ { "year": 1951, "label": "programmes begin", "kind": "posed" }, { "year": 1968, "label": "tokamak results (T-3)", "kind": "verified" }, { "year": 1983, "label": "JET first plasma", "kind": "verified" }, { "year": 2022, "label": "NIF ignition", "kind": "verified" }, { "year": 2034, "label": "ITER research ops (planned)", "kind": "claimed" } ], "years": "75 · stuck on Know/Can" }, { "exhibitId": "clean-electricity", "label": "Low-carbon electricity", "from": 1954, "to": null, "marks": [ { "year": 1954, "label": "silicon solar cell", "kind": "posed" }, { "year": 2024, "label": "solar capacity 2 TW", "kind": "verified" }, { "year": 2025, "label": "renewables overtake coal", "kind": "verified" } ], "years": "71 · stuck on Do" } ] }