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November 19, 2025<\/p>\n
3 min read<\/p>\n
New Research Shows How AI Could Transform Math, Physics, Cancer Research, and More<\/p>\n
A new paper shows ChatGPT-5 emerging as a tool that helps scientists test ideas, navigate literature and refine experiments<\/p>\n
By Deni Ellis B\u00e9chard edited by Clara Moskowitz<\/span><\/p>\n A new report from OpenAI and a group of outside scientists shows how GPT-5, the company\u2019s latest AI large language model (LLM), can help with research from black holes to cancer\u2011fighting cells to math puzzles.<\/p>\n Each chapter in the paper offers case studies: a mathematician or a physicist stuck in a quandary, a doctor trying to confirm a lab result. They all ask GPT-5 for help. Sometimes the LLM gets things wrong. Sometimes it finds a faster route to an already known result. But other times, with careful human guidance, it helps push the boundaries of what was previously known.<\/p>\n In one experiment involving how waves behave around black holes, GPT-5 worked through the math to independently produce results that had previously been shown to be correct, showing it was capable of doing this level of scientific calculation. In another project involving nuclear fusion, GPT-5 developed a model that accelerated the research. \u201cAI\u2019s ability to dramatically reduce the time required for coding\u2014compressing what would traditionally take days into mere minutes for the author\u2014has monumental implications for research practices,\u201d says Floor Broekgaarden, an astronomer at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved in the study.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n In another case, researchers studying immune cells used GPT-5 to interpret their data, and its explanation matched results the lab had already confirmed. \u201cGPT-5 Pro can function as a true mechanistic co-investigator in biomedical research, compressing months of reasoning into minutes, uncovering non-obvious hypotheses, and directly shaping experimentally testable strategies,\u201d Derya Unutmaz, the doctor leading the project, wrote in the paper.<\/p>\n The paper also announces several new math discoveries supported by GPT-5. Guided by human experts, it solved a long-standing problem posed in 1992 by mathematician Paul Erdős. It also produced a clearer rule showing the limitations of how computer systems make decisions; discovered another rule for how certain small patterns appear inside branching diagrams; and found a way to spot secret structures in a network as it grows. The discoveries are modest but appear to be genuine, and each was verified by human mathematicians.<\/p>\n \u201cI had not seen anything that impressive [in math] from an LLM before,\u201d says Ryan Foley, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the study. \u201cI suspect LLMs are going to upend how theories are created, vetted and improved.\u201d He cautions, however, that AI tools still require significant prompting: \u201cHumans are creative; AI is responsive. However, the rate of discovery should rapidly increase.\u201d<\/p>\n Prithviraj Ammanabrolu, a computer scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved in the research, points out that the published work is more a series of case studies than a scientific paper because it doesn\u2019t provide enough details to repeat the experiments and doesn\u2019t offer counterfactual analysis involving different approaches. Despite these limitations, AI\u2019s ability to help with research \u201cis still miles ahead of what was possible even a year ago, so the rate of progress is quite high,\u201d he says. \u201cIt shows future potential in enabling scientists to accurately mix together relevant prior results and draw new insights in novel ways.\u201d<\/p>\n One of GPT-5\u2019s strengths is its ability to search vast quantities of scientific literature. For a math problem listed as unsolved online, it identified a solution in a paper from the 1980s. In another case, it found a few lines in a German paper from the 1960s that settled a problem. It easily navigated the language barrier and the differences in style between midcentury math writing and contemporary approaches.<\/p>\n All of this might make GPT\u20115 sound like a scientific genius, but the paper\u2019s authors are clear that it\u2019s not. Rather, in the right hands, it is a fast and tireless assistant that has read an impossible number of papers and never minds reworking a calculation. But human judgment is not optional, they stress. Researchers also caught it being confidently wrong, and it can misstate references, hallucinating nonexistent papers or failing to credit authors of real ones.<\/p>\n \u201cHuman expertise remains crucial,\u201d Broekgaarden says. But AI \u201ccan take on myriad tasks\u2014collating data, summarizing research articles, and even performing complex calculations\u2014that previously demanded extensive time and effort from researchers.\u201d<\/p>\n Numerous ways that AI will shape research remain to be seen. New AI models are released every few months. If general\u2011purpose chatbots that struggled with middle school math two years ago can now spot hidden structures in black-hole waves and suggest new approaches to cell therapy, who knows what their successors will achieve?<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" November 19, 2025 3 min read New Research Shows How AI Could Transform Math, Physics, Cancer Research, and More A new paper shows ChatGPT-5 emerging as a tool that helps scientists test ideas, navigate literature and refine experiments By Deni Ellis B\u00e9chard edited by Clara Moskowitz A new report from OpenAI and a group of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[654,4693,5479,3141,871,8014],"class_list":{"0":"post-34617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-cancer","9":"tag-math","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-research","12":"tag-shows","13":"tag-transform"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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