---
author: Internet of Bugs
date: '2026-02-15'
guest: ''
layout: post.njk
source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_2NvGVl554
speaker: Internet of Bugs
tags:
- ai-simplification
- physics-computation
- brute-force-math
- ai-hype
- theoretical-physics
title: OpenAI的“物理学新发现”：真相解析与过度解读警示
summary: 本文解析了OpenAI声称在理论物理学领域取得“新结果”的实际情况。演讲者指出，这并非AI独立发现，而是人类作者提供复杂方程，由AI（GPT 5.2）进行数学简化。文章警示媒体可能过度解读，强调AI在此过程中扮演的是计算工具而非原创发现者，并区分了特定模型能力与通用AI的潜力。
insight: ''
draft: true
series: ''
category: ai-ml
area: tech-engineering
project: []
people: []
companies_orgs:
- OpenAI
products_models:
- GPT 5.2
- ChatGPT 5.2 Pro
media_books: []
status: evergreen
---
### OpenAI的“物理学新发现”：一场媒体风暴的序曲
近期，**OpenAI**发布了一则声明，宣称其在理论物理学领域“推导出了一个新的结果”。这一消息迅速引发了广泛关注，预计将充斥各大媒体，并可能伴随着关于AI创造新物理定律的夸大宣传。作为一名拥有物理学背景并对人工智能有深入了解的观察者，我希望借此机会，对这一事件的实际情况进行澄清，以帮助公众理解其真实含义，避免被不实信息误导。
Original English
All right, so this is going to be a different
kind of video.
I'm not running scripted.
It's going to be kind of off the cuff.
OpenAI just dropped this press release about
how it, quote, "Derived a new result in
theoretical
physics."
And I'm sure it's going to end up being all
over the papers and everybody's going to talk
about how it created new laws or any of that
kind of crap.
I happen to have had a physics degree many
years ago from Texas A&M - insert Aggie joke
here - and I happen to know enough about AI to
kind of understand how the computing part
of this might work, and I'm willing to put my
thumb in Sam Altman's eye - figuratively
speaking, of course.
So I figured I would take a minute to try to
head this off and put together a quick video
to help you understand what the heck they're
talking about.
Okay.
So here's this, this press release they put out,
I'll put all the URLs down in the bottom.
### AI的数学简化：真相与工具属性
OpenAI的声明中提到：“使用教科书方法计算的某些物理可观测值，看起来极其复杂，但最终却非常简单。找到一个简单的公式一直是件棘手的事，而且我一直觉得这可能是可以通过计算机自动化的。” 这句话揭示了事件的核心。深入审视其发布的**实际论文**，可以发现OpenAI仅在致谢部分被提及，表明其并非独立完成所有工作。
根据我的理解，整个过程是这样的：首先，**人类作者**通过手工推导，为较长的方程得出了极其复杂的表达式。随后，他们将这个复杂表达式输入到**GPT 5.2**（或**GPT 5.2 Pro**）模型中。AI经过12小时的计算（“grinded”），最终给出了一个简化的版本。值得注意的是，类似的任务，如果愿意投入相应的API调用成本，使用**Mathematica**等数学软件也可能完成。
本质上，AI在此过程中扮演的角色是：接收一组已有的复杂数学表达式，通过大量的计算（“brute force”）来寻找一个更简洁、更通用的形式。它并没有创造新的物理学原理，而是对人类已有的数学工作进行了优化和简化。这是一种有价值的计算能力，但并非只有AI才能实现，也不是AI在物理学上的原创性突破。
Original English
"Some physical observables calculated using
textbook methods look terribly complicated,
but turn out to be very simple.
Finding a simple formula is always been fiddly
and also something that I have long felt might
be automatable by computers."
So here's what we're actually talking about,
right?
If you look at the actual paper that they
generated, you'll see that OpenAI is mentioned
here, and it's mentioned here, and it's
mentioned in the acknowledgments.
So it's not like OpenAI was doing all of this
stuff.
What happened as near as I can tell was human
authors worked out the amplitudes for longer
equations by hand, getting a very complicated
expression, right?
And then they gave that expression to GPT 5.2,
GPT 5.2 Pro, and it grinded for 12 hours
and then came up with a simplified version of
it.
This is the kind of thing you probably could
have gotten Mathematica to do if you're willing
to spend the money on all the API calls that
would have taken to grind through all this
stuff.
But basically what happened, and you don't need
to understand any of this stuff, right?
So you've got all this stuff here, and then you've
got all this stuff here and down here.
And what happened was - let me change colors -
that OpenAI, ChatGPT 5.2, took all of that
stuff and ground on it and found that this
particular equation was a simplified version
of all of the equations that I've got there in
yellow and some on the previous page.
So it's basically just a finding the generic
form of a bunch of different equations that
people had already worked out, and you can do
that basically with brute force.
I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying
this isn't a cool result, but this is not
a result in physics that only an AI could have
come up with.
This is just a thing that spent a lot of time
doing brute force on math until it found an
equation that was a simplified version of a
bunch of other equations that it had.
That's really all it is.
### 警惕过度解读：AI的真实能力边界
我乐见AI能够辅助简化方程，也欣喜看到**物理学家**们能够利用计算机作为工具。事实上，计算机在科学研究中的应用已持续数十年。AI作为一种新兴工具，能够帮助物理学家处理复杂的数学问题，从而让他们能将更多精力投入到理论探索和其他研究领域。
然而，基于对事件的分析，尤其是声明中“代表OpenAI”的措辞，我推测一种可能的叙事是：OpenAI的团队主动联系了多所大学的学者，寻找那些可能存在简化形式的方程，获取其复杂版本，输入AI进行处理，再将简化结果反馈给研究人员。随后，OpenAI通过这则新闻稿，试图将这项成果归功于自身。
声明中“推导（derive）”一词，在数学语境下通常指“将一个方程转化为另一个方程”，而非发现全新的物理定律，如“牛顿第四定律”那样具有颠覆性的意义。这仅仅是有人将复杂的数学问题交给AI，AI返回了一个简化版本。理论上，人类也可以完成，只是耗时耗力。AI的价值在于加速这一过程。
我担心的是，这一事件将被媒体描绘成AI独立发现了人类无法企v的物理学知识，从而引发新一轮的AI神话。当普通大众仅凭耸人听闻的标题（“ChatGPT 5.2 推导了理论物理学的新结果”）而不知其所以然时，信息就会被严重扭曲。这种夸大其词的宣传，很可能还会与“ChatGPT是每个学科的博士”之类的论调相结合，进一步模糊AI的真实能力边界。
值得注意的是，论文中提到了一个“新的内部OpenAI模型”。这表明OpenAI可能为此目的开发了专门的模型，这本身是技术进步的表现，也可能耗资巨大。但这并不意味着**ChatGPT**本身就具备了博士级别的物理学素养，能够独立完成人类物理学家无法企及的发现。这与“聊天机器人发现了宇宙基本力”是截然不同的概念。
在未来几天内，我们可能会看到大量基于此事的标题党新闻。我希望通过这个视频，在信息被过度放大之前，提供一个更客观的视角。如果有人看到那些不实标题，或许可以参考这个视频，或者其他更严谨的分析。
最后，我必须说明，这个视频的录制非常仓促。我原本在准备录制另一个视频，偶然看到了这则新闻稿，便决定立即录制一个简短的说明。我没有进行通常的研究、撰写脚本和多次编辑。这一切都是即兴发挥，但鉴于这则新闻稿可能引发的误解，我认为有必要尽快发出我的看法，希望能帮助一部分人免受不实信息的蒙蔽。感谢观看，请大家保持警惕。
Original English
And I'm happy that AI can simplify equations.
I'm happy that physicists can turn to computers.
They have been for decades now.
But I'm happy that AI is a new tool that
physicists can use to make the math simpler,
and then they can use that simplified math to
try to go and look at other things.
I mean, it's good that OpenAI can do this, but
my guess based on looking at this, especially
up here at the top where it says this was on
behalf of OpenAI, my guess is one way this
could have happened is the OpenAI folks could
have gone around a bunch of universities,
found somebody who knew of some equations that
would be cool to simplify or that they
thought might have a simplified form, asked
people to give them the longer versions of
those equations, took those, fed it into the AI,
got a simplified version out, gave it
back to the physicists, the physicists did
something with it, and then OpenAI is basically
in this press release trying to claim the
credit for it.
The "ChatGPT 5.2 derives a new result for the
theoretical physics."
So "derive" is a mathematical term for "turned one
equation into another", basically.
This is not like Newton's fourth law or
something, right?
This is just somebody took some complicated
math, fed it into the AI and the AI come back
with a simplified version of it.
People could have done that.
It just would have taken a lot of time and
effort, and I'm glad that the AI can make
that faster, but this is, I'm sure this is
going to be presented as the AI figured out
a lot of physics at the people that only AI
could have figured out or that humans weren't
capable of that kind of stuff.
It just simplified some math, and it's good
that it simplified some math, but I'm sure
it's going to get blown way out of proportion
because this headline sounds a lot more grandiose
than what the actual reality actually is, and
then some idiots out there are going to take
this headline, and they're going to not
understand what any of the other stuff is, and
they're
just going to run with this headline, and I don't
even want to know how bad the headlines
of the articles or the videos that people write
based on this headline are going to be.
I'm sure we're going to hear that, and it's
going to get combined with Sam Altman's bit
about how "ChatGPT is supposedly a PhD in every
subject" garbage, and oh, by the way, there's
a bit in this paper where it talks about a "new
internal OpenAI model."
So as near as I can tell, OpenAI built a
special model to do part of this, which is
fine, and it's great, and I'm sure it cost
them a lot of money, but it's not like we're
talking about ChatGPT being a PhD physicist
and coming up with stuff that physicists weren't
capable of doing.
This is not "chatbot discovered as a fundamental
force of the universe" or something like that.
Despite the headlines, you're probably going to
see in the next few days, so I figured
I would just say this real quick, get this out
there before all the headlines happen,
hopefully somebody, when they see the headlines,
point to a video like this, or hopefully some
other people will say things about it.
Thanks for watching.
Sorry, this wasn't very organized.
I was setting up to record another video, and I
saw this press release come out.
It was like, "all right, I'll just go ahead and
record something quick about it."
I haven't taken my normal time to vet and
research and make a script and edit it several
times and all that kind of stuff.
This is all just unscripted off the cuff, but
when I saw that press release came out,
I thought, "you know, I ought to get something
out there since I can, and hopefully some
people will see it and not everybody will be
fooled by whatever the headlines are going
to be."
Thanks for watching.
Let's be careful out there.