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ARTICLE · 23 OCTOBER 2026

AI, Attribution And A Race To Solve Decades Long Maths Problems

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OpenAI's AI model recently claimed to solve part of the Navier-Stokes equations, but the breakthrough sparked a dispute when an NYU professor alleged the company had access to his unpublished research through its own tools. This case raises critical questions about attribution, confidentiality, and intellectual property ownership when AI systems are used in research and development.

United KingdomIntellectual Property
Felicity Lush
Felicity Lush

OpenAI recently announced that an internal AI model had solved part of the Navier-Stokes equations, notoriously difficult maths problems that have gone unsolved for decades. The breakthrough was immediately overshadowed by a dispute. NYU professor Tristan Buckmaster alleged that OpenAI had access to unpublished, related work by him and Levent Alpöge (an Anthropic employee researching in a personal capacity) which had been fed into OpenAI’s tools.

OpenAI’s Deus ex machina moment

Buckmaster and Alpöge had reportedly been working on the Navier-Stokes and Euler equations for many months and by late August had obtained significant results. The pair used AI, including OpenAI’s Codex tool and Astra model, heavily in their research.

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