Proving Olympiad Inequalities by Synergizing LLMs and Symbolic Reasoning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Li, Zenan, Li, Zhaoyu, Tang, Wen, Zhang, Xian, Yao, Yuan, Si, Xujie, Yang, Fan, Yang, Kaiyu, Ma, Xiaoxing
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866916632635375616
author Li, Zenan
Li, Zhaoyu
Tang, Wen
Zhang, Xian
Yao, Yuan
Si, Xujie
Yang, Fan
Yang, Kaiyu
Ma, Xiaoxing
author_facet Li, Zenan
Li, Zhaoyu
Tang, Wen
Zhang, Xian
Yao, Yuan
Si, Xujie
Yang, Fan
Yang, Kaiyu
Ma, Xiaoxing
contents Large language models (LLMs) can prove mathematical theorems formally by generating proof steps (\textit{a.k.a.} tactics) within a proof system. However, the space of possible tactics is vast and complex, while the available training data for formal proofs is limited, posing a significant challenge to LLM-based tactic generation. To address this, we introduce a neuro-symbolic tactic generator that synergizes the mathematical intuition learned by LLMs with domain-specific insights encoded by symbolic methods. The key aspect of this integration is identifying which parts of mathematical reasoning are best suited to LLMs and which to symbolic methods. While the high-level idea of neuro-symbolic integration is broadly applicable to various mathematical problems, in this paper, we focus specifically on Olympiad inequalities (Figure~1). We analyze how humans solve these problems and distill the techniques into two types of tactics: (1) scaling, handled by symbolic methods, and (2) rewriting, handled by LLMs. In addition, we combine symbolic tools with LLMs to prune and rank the proof goals for efficient proof search. We evaluate our framework on 161 challenging inequalities from multiple mathematics competitions, achieving state-of-the-art performance and significantly outperforming existing LLM and symbolic approaches without requiring additional training data.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_13834
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Proving Olympiad Inequalities by Synergizing LLMs and Symbolic Reasoning
Li, Zenan
Li, Zhaoyu
Tang, Wen
Zhang, Xian
Yao, Yuan
Si, Xujie
Yang, Fan
Yang, Kaiyu
Ma, Xiaoxing
Artificial Intelligence
Large language models (LLMs) can prove mathematical theorems formally by generating proof steps (\textit{a.k.a.} tactics) within a proof system. However, the space of possible tactics is vast and complex, while the available training data for formal proofs is limited, posing a significant challenge to LLM-based tactic generation. To address this, we introduce a neuro-symbolic tactic generator that synergizes the mathematical intuition learned by LLMs with domain-specific insights encoded by symbolic methods. The key aspect of this integration is identifying which parts of mathematical reasoning are best suited to LLMs and which to symbolic methods. While the high-level idea of neuro-symbolic integration is broadly applicable to various mathematical problems, in this paper, we focus specifically on Olympiad inequalities (Figure~1). We analyze how humans solve these problems and distill the techniques into two types of tactics: (1) scaling, handled by symbolic methods, and (2) rewriting, handled by LLMs. In addition, we combine symbolic tools with LLMs to prune and rank the proof goals for efficient proof search. We evaluate our framework on 161 challenging inequalities from multiple mathematics competitions, achieving state-of-the-art performance and significantly outperforming existing LLM and symbolic approaches without requiring additional training data.
title Proving Olympiad Inequalities by Synergizing LLMs and Symbolic Reasoning
topic Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.13834