Current LLMs rarely discover novel physical laws through autonomous exploration, even when given tools and freedom to experiment, suggesting fundamental gaps in their ability to conduct genuine scientific inquiry without explicit guidance.
Researchers created LongChang, a framework that tests whether LLMs can discover hidden physical laws by freely exploring simulated worlds with altered physics. LLMs act as autonomous scientists, noticing unexpected phenomena (like objects falling at different speeds) and designing experiments to uncover the rules—without being told what to investigate.