Definition
Plain language
Solving a hard problem by repeatedly splitting it into smaller subproblems, top-down, and diving into one branch at a time.
As stated in the literature
A top-down, depth-first proof- or task-solving strategy that recursively splits a goal into subgoals; contrasted in Goedel-Architect with global blueprint generation, which lays out the entire dependency graph up front and attacks it in parallel.
Why it matters: It makes overwhelming problems tractable by reducing them, one branch at a time, into pieces small enough to solve.
For example, to prove a big theorem you might split it into two smaller claims, then split one of those into still smaller ones, diving deeper until each piece is easy.
Heard on the show
“The dominant way people have built these systems is something called recursive decomposition.”Episode 117 — How an Open AI System Verified 672 Hard Math Proofs for Under $300