Yes, Claude can do nine loops
3 hours ago
- Matt von Hippel, a physicist and science writer, challenged AI companies to solve a frontier problem in theoretical particle physics: computing scattering amplitudes at high loop orders, specifically N=4 super Yang-Mills to nine loops.
- Anthropic's Claude, using the Claude Science platform, successfully computed the nine-loop amplitude autonomously, costing around $1,000 in compute time and using known methods like bootstrap and form-factor approaches.
- The achievement demonstrated that AI can reliably perform complex, fragile calculations that experts thought were too hard, though it used existing techniques rather than novel insights.
- Lance Dixon at SLAC validated the result, noting it validated his team's earlier work and that Claude executed the recipe without human oversight.
- The event highlights low-hanging fruit in computational physics and suggests AI is improving rapidly, but does not yet indicate superintelligence or transformative new methods.