2025.findings-acl.610@ACL

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#1 Physics: Benchmarking Foundation Models on University-Level Physics Problem Solving [PDF] [Copy] [Kimi] [REL]

Authors: Kaiyue Feng, Yilun Zhao, Yixin Liu, Tianyu Yang, Chen Zhao, John Sous, Arman Cohan

We introduce Physics, a comprehensive benchmark for university-level physics problem solving. It contains 1,297 expert-annotated problems covering six core areas: classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, electromagnetism, atomic physics, and optics.Each problem requires advanced physics knowledge and mathematical reasoning.We develop a robust automated evaluation system for precise and reliable validation. Our evaluation of leading foundation models reveals substantial limitations. Even the most advanced model, o3-mini, achieves only 59.9% accuracy, highlighting significant challenges in solving high-level scientific problems.Through comprehensive error analysis, exploration of diverse prompting strategies, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)-based knowledge augmentation, we identify key areas for improvement, laying the foundation for future advancements.

Subject: ACL.2025 - Findings