The aim of this prototype website is to explore the capabilities of state-of-the-art large language models (LLMs) for solving demanding physics problems. Original problem texts and solutions by human experts are presented along with LLM-generated summaries, solutions and self-assessments.
The archive currently includes problems from the 2025-2026 NBPhO competitions, with potential to expand to earlier years and other types of competitions in the future.
Each problem comes with up to five companion views accessible from any problem page:
Claude's summaries, solutions and self-assessments are generated by a large language model and have not been reviewed by human physics experts. Based on spot-checks against official solutions, these are generally sound and pedagogically useful, suitable as a study aid, but may still contain errors. Treat them as an informed starting point, not as an authoritative answer key.
This prototype website was created by Mihkel Kree using Claude.
Reconstruct the unseen circular path of a moving thin lens, and the direction of its plane, from the closed image curves it traces of two fixed object points.
Find the on-screen amplitude of the -channel signal at the slider position that collapses the oscilloscope Lissajous trace into a line segment.
A child on a rigid-rod swing parametrically pumps the amplitude by squatting at turning points and standing up at the bottom; count the stand-ups required to go over the top.
A bead slides on a frictionless rod that rotates about a horizontal axis; identify the bounded circular trajectory generated by gravity, stabilise it with a Hooke spring, and reverse-engineer the parameters of a rotating electric field from the resulting rosette pattern.
Determine the saturated vapour pressure of water at room temperature using a long dodecane-filled tube and a syringe, exploiting the immiscibility of dodecane and water and the hydrostatic balance of the liquid columns.
A rope pulled at constant rate over a horizontal bar drags a weight across a frictionless floor; find its speed, acceleration, and the angle at which it lifts off.
Derive the Reynolds number from drag-force scaling, classify the flow in a garden hose, and compute how a nozzle changes the flow rate and the cleaning pressure.
Decode a supersonic flyby spectrogram to extract the Mach number and closest-approach distance from the Doppler asymptotes and the sonic-boom delay.
Use a – diagram of CO₂ to find the dry-ice fraction in the exhaust of a fire extinguisher for two cylinder orientations, then derive the condition under which adiabatic expansion of saturated vapour spontaneously condenses.
Using a ball-shaped neodymium magnet as a calibrated point dipole, locate its magnetisation axis, measure the strength of the Earth's magnetic field, and extract the magnetic susceptibility of a small titanium wire piece from the force on it in the magnet's inhomogeneous field.
Dynamics of a steel dumbbell in zero gravity — longitudinal oscillations and wall collisions at various angles of incidence.
Piston–cylinder equilibrium with saturated vapour, and derivation of the wet-bulb temperature of sweating skin in a sauna.
Neutron moderation in a thermal reactor — speeds, temperatures, number of collisions to thermalise, and gas buildup in spent fuel rods.
Determine the internal circuit topology, resistor value, and diode opening voltages of an unknown black box containing three diodes and a resistor.
Minimum-speed projectile to intercept an accelerating drone, and graphical determination of speeds in a stone–ball intercept problem.
Find the maximum number of identical birds a floating square-cross-section beam can hold above water, given a specific one-bird tipping condition.
Rotation and translation of a uniformly charged rod in a homogeneous magnetic field, subject only to the Lorentz force.
Infer the Milky Way's vertical gravitational potential and dark matter density from the phase-space winding spiral of nearby stars (after Antoja et al. 2018, Guo et al. 2024).
Measure emissivity of polished aluminium, the heat transfer coefficient to air, heat capacity of a metal plate, and thermal conductance of silicone rubber pads.