Vibe physics: The AI grad student (32 minute read)

A professor of physics supervised Claude through a real research calculation from start to finish without ever touching a file to see whether AI could do theoretical physics. This resulted in a technically rigorous, impactful, high-energy theoretical physics paper in two weeks instead of the usual year. While Claude was impressively capable, domain expertise was essential for evaluating its accuracy. AI is still not able to do end-to-end science, but the project proved that it can do frontier science with guidance.