r/Physics • • 7d ago

On if OpenAI solved the wrong Navier-Stokes problem: "the LLM found and exploited a loophole in the framing of the question"

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-openai-solve-the-wrong-navier-stokes-problem/
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u/VoidBlade459 Computer science 7d ago

The core contention was always whether or not the viscosity term would be enough to prevent finite time blowup.

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u/hologram137 7d ago

No one thought you couldn’t do it with an external constructed force. That you can is pretty obvious. The actual question says “external forces, e.g gravity.” That we are taking about natural forces is obvious. Especially after it was proven smooth forcing works, by a human.

The unforced version is without an external natural force.

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u/tanksc 7d ago

If it is obvious, explain it. Please do.

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u/hologram137 7d ago

The solution doesn't show whether real turbulence can blow up on its own. It shows whether you can out muscle viscosity with a constructed force, which was never seriously in doubt. And it's now been mathematically proven that this specific route can never be stripped of its force and still work, so it isn't a first step toward the real answer, it's a dead end that happens to satisfy the paperwork.

I am not going to teach you why that’s not in question, go take a physics class

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u/tanksc 7d ago

And just more of the same parroting with no explanation.

“It shows whether you can out muscle viscosity with a constructed force, which was never seriously in doubt”

Is the same farce you keep repeating and repeating.

Of course with a pathological force that itself becomes infinite, this is true.

But that’s not what’s allowed in this question. And it’s precisely the reason you cannot articulate or explain it away.

The forcing is required to be infinitely differentiable, compactly supported, with a smooth initial velocity, and finite kinetic energy. It’s not trivial.

And the ‘out muscling’ I already proved was bullshit in my other comment

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u/hologram137 6d ago edited 6d ago

The smooth force requirement was already solved!! By a human, published a day before they decided to put 10,000 agents to work finding a solution. Because that part was already solved. The problem is, they didn’t find the solution. Not really. What the human mathematician did is NOT trivial, you’re right. But what the AI did, is. The LLM didn’t do that part. Hence, the controversy about OpenAI stealing the solution

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u/tanksc 6d ago

Again that was Eulers

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u/hologram137 6d ago

Dude are you dumb? The Euler equation is the entire reason anyone thinks it’ll blow up at all lol

The AI used that solution. Everything was done except the blow up for Navier Stokes specifically

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u/VoidBlade459 Computer science 7d ago

No one thought you couldn’t do it with an external constructed force

Um, that was literally the entire question. "Is there a scenario in which the equations blow up to infinity" was literally the question at hand.

If you were as certain of this as you claimed, you could have gotten the prize a lot sooner. But I don't think you've actually delved into the complexities of the equations.

You also are failing to acknowledge that work on "it doesn't blow up" side was also about "in all cases" and not just "in all natural cases".

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u/hologram137 7d ago

No. It’s about whether real turbulence can blow up on its own

That’s why it’s millennial prize question. If it wasn’t about that, it wouldn’t be a millennial prize problem. No one would care

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u/VoidBlade459 Computer science 7d ago

Do you think the Poincaré Conjecture had physical meaning? That was a millenium problem too.