When Quantum Physics Hit A Dead End, GPT-5.2 Found a Hidden Door

NDTV Profit ^ | February 16, 2026 | Yukta Baid

[Twotone]

OpenAI's GPT-5.2 has derived a new formula for gluon interactions, overturning assumptions of zero amplitude and advancing theoretical physics.

For a long, long time physicists treated this interaction as a cosmic impossibility — a mathematical dead end so absolute it was taught almost with the certainty of Newton's laws and the elegance of Einstein's equations. Zero, in quantum physics, isn't a shrug; it's a verdict. And this particular verdict had stood unchallenged for decades.

But every so often, science gets a jolt — a falling apple, a bending beam of starlight… or, in 2026, an AI model that refuses to accept “impossible” as an answer.

A new research paper co-authored by leading theoretical physicists and OpenAI researchers has revealed that this interaction, involving particles called gluons, can in fact, occur under very specific conditions. What's more, the key formula describing this interaction was first identified with the help from GPT 5.2, which simplified the complex equations and spotted a pattern that physicists hadn't fully recognised.

At the heart of this preprint, titled 'Single-minus gluon tree amplitudes are nonzero', available on arXiv, are gluons — particles so fundamental that without them, matter itself wouldn't exist.

An internal scaffolded version of GPT-5.2 spent approximately 12 hours reasoning through the problem to generate the formula and a formal proof of its validity.

Gluons are essentially the smallest building blocks of reality known. They carry the strong nuclear force that binds fundamental subatomic particles (quarks) together, to form protons and neutrons. Without gluons, quarks would drift apart, atomic nuclei would collapse, and the physical world, as we know it, would fall apart.

Physicists study gluons to understand atoms, but also to understand the mathematical framework around reality and the forces governing it. These particles are described and understood by quantum field theory...

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TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: ai; astronomy; elmersgluons; gluons; openai; physics; quantummechanics; quantumphysics; science; stringtheory

[Ezekiel]

Good point.

They were really out of the loop on that one.

[Hot Tabasco]

'Single-minus gluon tree amplitudes are nonzero', available on arXiv, are gluons

What a coincidence. Just last Friday night my bowling team discussed this very topic........

[bosco24]

I like that picture that shows we are around the middle between smallest possible and largest possible in the universe.

Diameter of the visible universe 1 X 10 ^27 m

Tall of human 2 X 10^0 m

Diameter of plank space 1 X 10^-35 m

[Billthedrill]

Just last Friday night my bowling team discussed this very topic...

Yup. It was a pretty hot topic down at the feed store too. Them boys will fight over anything.

[Drew68]

I think as AI improves; this type of story will appear more and more often.

I think we're going to see advances by orders of magnitude in the medical/pharma fields thanks to AI.

[Sawdring]

Snap-On was already copyrighted by an expensive tool company.

[Ezekiel]

Snap-On was already copyrighted by an expensive tool company.

Yeah but the quantum world doesn't follow the same laws as everyone else.

[Beowulf9]

This stuff is fascinating.

[frank ballenger]

Neither did Elmer’s Gluon.

[newfreep]

Sorry...but mankind did NOT “evolve”.

God’s devine design is recorded in Genesis.

It’s not rocket science...

[Ezekiel]

The Fuddamentals of physics really go down a wabbit hole.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for the ping.

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[Mariner]

Now that we are in the Singularity we can expect more astounding developments.

[Mariner]

“We will know the ‘Singularity’ is here when it resolves the Riemann Hypothesis.”

That is not the measure of Singularity.

Singularity is when AI builds, autonomously, ever increasingly better versions of itself.

Folks on the inside say we are there now...as of Jan 2026.

[Lurker]

It’s turtles all the way down.

L

[ShadowAce]

Hence the word “known” in the original statement.

[Iron Munro]

[TexasGator]

“Hence the word “known” in the original statement.”

Strike your word ‘reality’.

[Paperpusher]

Never get between two quarks that are having a strong interaction.

[Lockbox]

😂