New paper from Google Deep Mind, and many top Universities finds the best AI agent tested solved 49 of 50 unpublished research-level theoretical physics problems, each roughly a day's work for a world expert.

at under $3 each.

Benchmarks for AI in physics often use textbook or contest problems, or block the tools real researchers use. So it was unclear how agents handle the calculations that fill daily research.

Experts contributed 50 unpublished problems from their own research, each about a day's work for a specialist. Agents worked alone, with and without web search, and were graded only on final numerical answers.

GPT-6-Astra in Codex solved 49 of 50 with web search, and both it and Opus 5.5 in Claude Code solved 46 of 50 without it. Accuracy barely changed without search, which suggests the models have memorized much of the physics literature.