Dev uses Claude to visualize OpenAI's finite-time blowup construction for 3D Euler

CatAstro_Piyush · x · 2026-09-09

Philip Mocz built euler-blowup-viz on GitHub, a first-pass visualization and simulation of the construction in OpenAI's paper on finite-time blowup for the 3D Euler equation, made with Claude's help. The theorem shows a smooth, compactly supported, divergence-free initial datum whose Euler solution blows up in finite time, bridging prior whole-space sub-smooth results and Chen–Hou's boundary-dependent smooth construction. The mechanism: iterated short-wave (WKB) instability, where each localized high-frequency packet's large gradient becomes the shear amplifying the next packet — geometrically, stacked vortex sheets pivoted 90° and exponentially crowded by the parent shear.

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