Technology · 2026-10-28 · Morning briefing
OpenAI model solves quantum physics proof, pre-empting rivals
OpenAI has released a formal proof for quantum chromodynamics, a foundational theory of particle physics that mathematicians have pursued for over 50 years. The company used a proprietary large language model to solve the problem, which underpins physicists' standard description of the universe. The achievement follows OpenAI's separate announcement on September 8th that it had solved the Navier-Stokes problem, another major mathematical challenge.
The result pre-empted the work of two researchers, Levent Alpöge of Anthropic—an AI rival to OpenAI—and Ethan Sussman of Northwestern University. The pair had been collaborating on their own proof, building on a framework established in the 1980s. They publicly revealed their progress on October 6th and believed they were only a few weeks from completing the solution themselves.
Hearing rumors of OpenAI's impending announcement, the duo began posting their work-in-progress to a public GitHub repository to stake their claim. They made a final update with new intermediate results the night before OpenAI's release. "I'm not going to say that I'm not disappointed," Mr. Sussman stated.
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- OpenAI Models Produce Breakthrough Mathematical Proofs and Results
- OpenAI announces new discoveries in mathematics, computer science and physics
- OpenAI Claims AI Solved Three Major Scientific Problems in Math, CS, and Physics
- OpenAI claims AI breakthroughs in math, physics and computing
- OpenAI Announces Three New Proofs in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Physics, Claiming Disproof of the Exponential Time Hypothesis. Key Verification Points to Consider ...
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