In an effort to test adversarially the randomized cubic test from my blog post: https://dbernier.ca/2026/07/30/new-preprint-exact-liar-counts-for-a-cubic-frobenius-test/, I downloaded Shallue and Webster’s table of the Carmichael numbers to 10^24 here: https://blue.butler.edu/~jewebste/new_table.txt.
Here is a transcript of a conversation with ChatGPT after the census of the Carmichael numbers to 10^24 was completed:
That is a strikingly clean outcome.For the record:[\boxed{\min_{N<10^{24}\atop N\ \mathrm{Carmichael}}E_q(N)=1.354882088024269\ldots}]under our least-admissible-(q) rule, attained at[N=739243849201,\qquad\rho=\frac1{12045030055140096}.]Consequences of this census:* The old record survives all (308{,}279{,}939) Carmichael numbers below (10^{24}).* No entry has (E<1.35), (E<1), or (E=0).* Hence there is no nuclear example in this table.* Only 113 entries have (E<3/2).* Only four have (E<1.4).* The third-lowest value, [ E=1.3741769148\ldots, ] occurs much later, at (N\approx5.4\times10^{22}), but does not seriously challenge the record.* Inputs more than (10^{12}) times larger than the minimizer fail to improve it.The preserved result is identified by:```texte42a490c0ebd4606e875514c679329ae68055e252f81a2c360e7fa7f2da5eea5```The next analysis should attach the supplied factorizations and (\omega(N)) to these 113 hits. This command streams through the table once:```bashawk 'NR==FNR{r[$1]=$2;e[$1]=$3;next}($1 in r){printf "%s %s %s %d",$1,r[$1],e[$1],NF-1;for(i=2;i<=NF;i++)printf " %s",$i;printf "\n"}' ~/abf_carmichael_E_lt_1p5.txt /mnt/c/Users/berni/Downloads/new_table.txt > ~/abf_carmichael_E_lt_1p5_factored.txt```Then verify:```bashwc -l ~/abf_carmichael_E_lt_1p5_factored.txtsha256sum ~/abf_carmichael_E_lt_1p5_factored.txt```This is strong finite evidence for (E>1), with a substantial observed margin of (0.354882\ldots), but correctly remains a computational census rather than a proof beyond (10^{24}).
The summary is that E(N) > 1.3 for all Carmichael numbers below 10^24, i.e. rho_{N,q} < 1/N^(1.3) for Carmichael numbers in this range. For the exact meaning of rho_{N,q}, please consult the preprint on zenodo at: https://zenodo.org/records/21705261.
Currently, we have no useful upper bound on the proportion of liars when the number to be tested, N, has 5 or more factors. What we can say is that we haven’t found any N and q for which rho_{N,q} > 1/N. It remains that we cannot rule out such a scenario at the present time.