GoKawiilPhysicist's blog challenge: Claude computes nine-loop Feynman integral
Science writer and former theoretical physicist Matt von Hippel issued a public challenge for an AI model to tackle a computationally demanding problem from his former field of theoretical physics. Within about a month, Anthropic's Claude was shown to complete the task, calculating a nine-loop result that von Hippel says was hard not because the method was unknown but because the computation itself was formidable.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
Von Hippel frames this as one concrete data point in a broader, unresolved debate among AI researchers over whether large language models are approaching a ceiling or steadily advancing toward more general capability. Because the task tested raw computational persistence rather than novel mathematical insight, the result could be read as evidence that LLMs are gaining ground on brute-force technical work in physics, though von Hippel stops short of drawing sweeping conclusions.
- Matt von Hippel publicly challenged AI systems to attempt a hard computational physics problem from his former subfield.
- Anthropic's Claude reportedly completed a nine-loop calculation within about a month of the challenge being issued.
- Von Hippel says the task was chosen specifically to test computational difficulty rather than the discovery of new mathematical ideas.
Source: anthropic.com, 2026-09-25
Published there as: “Yes, Claude can do Nine Loops”
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