Nobel Prize-winning physicist and team use Claude AI to solve decades-old math puzzle
By Benjamin Skuse, Live Science, July 12, 2026
Two physicists have used generative artificial intelligence (AI) to solve a stubborn mathematical problem in physics that had vexed researchers for more than a decade.
Their solution, described July 1 in the Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment, came about when the physicists chose to revisit a problem they thought they had attempted to solve exhaustively within a topic they knew intimately. This concept, known as jamming, refers to the sudden transition from a fluid system to a rigid-but-disordered one.
The simplest way to understand this idea is to imagine a pool table covered with billiard balls. If you keep adding balls, eventually the table becomes so congested…
