Docs / Seed collection

The seed collection

PubPhys starts from a seed collection of 1,761 problems under 360 topics in 18 fields, compiled for PubPhys on 1 and 2 October 2026 by AI research agents. The problems have not yet been reviewed one by one by a person: each seed problem and topic is labelled "Compiled by AI, not yet reviewed by an editor" until an editor's review record exists. It is a starting point: every problem can be refined, split or contested.

How it was prepared

• Duplicates were merged: 58 problems and 5 topics that asked the same question were folded into one copy.
• Every topic's review reference was checked against Crossref or arXiv; 3 were corrected.
• Status notes that mention work from 2024 on are marked unverified (742 notes): they were partly written without a live literature search.
• What was checked by people: the automated audit of every review reference above, and a sample of the formula conversions below. Nothing else was reviewed by hand.
• The signed seed records leave assisted_by empty: their provenance is the import manifest below, which says how they were made. A later revision of a seed problem names the AI systems it used.
• Formulas written in plain text were converted to typeset notation by AI. Each formula was checked automatically: the text around it is unchanged, it covers whole words of the original with the same symbols in the same order, and it typesets. Where only some of the proposed formulas passed, those were kept and the rest left as plain text. A random sample of the conversions was reviewed by eye.

Revision 2: notation repaired

Seed revision 2 repairs the notation of the seed text: formulas left partly converted, numbers such as 1e-19 inside formulas, words used as operators, plain chemical formulas from a reviewed list, and question marks in titles. A fixed rule table made most edits; an AI model repaired partial conversions, each edit checked by a validator that keeps the numbers, symbols and the text around them. Every edited field is listed in the batch's items file, saying whether a rule, the AI or a person changed it. Fields whose repair failed kept their text and are fixed by hand later.

Nothing was overwritten. Revision 1 of every problem and topic stays in the log unchanged; revision 2 is a new signed record that names revision 1 and the batch's import manifest as parents, and the platform's review of it says it was accepted with the batch. The label "Compiled by AI, not yet reviewed by an editor" stays: a platform review is not a person's review.

The batch approval. One person, the batch approver, signed with his ORCID iD one review record accepting the batch's manifest. The manifest's file names the SHA-256 of the items file and of the review file, so the approval is bound to the exact data and to the decisions taken on the review page. Before signing he had the counts, those hashes, the review lists (a random sample of rule edits, every chemical formula rewrite, every AI-assisted field, the doubtful titles, the failure list) with the text before and after, and both files. Decisions on the review page were taken by people, some by agreeing with an AI suggestion; the review file records which, per item. The approval approves the batch, not each problem: it does not make any problem reviewed by an editor.

A bundle proves one record. The verifier checks a record's own rules and signatures, not what its problem_ref or parents point to. To check the chain, verify the revision 1 bundle, the revision 2 bundle and the review bundles separately, and resolve the references on this site or from an archive of the log.

While a batch is under way

A seed revision batch writes over the revisions it was prepared against. So, while a batch is prepared, approved, or written and not yet anchored in Bitcoin, changes to seed problems and topics wait: editors' revisions of them, the decisions on those revisions, moving a problem to another topic, marking a status note verified, granting an appeal of a decision on one, and removing a revision for abuse or spam. The administrator's own seed edits start once the revision 2 batch is anchored, not merely written. A person's own problems and topics never wait.

Removals for copyright or personal data never wait. A batch they touch before it is written is set aside and prepared again without that item. When a seed revision must be withheld for copyright or personal data, its text is replaced and the problem shows its previous revision; this move is recorded in the admin log, not as a signed record. If a result answers the revision's question and the revision before it asks another, the revision stays displayed with its text withheld until the result is decided or removed.

• Import manifest: ce59fb6cd812fc05…
• Batch approval by Victor Galitski: c4417ea89cbb0b93… (bundle)
• The batch's files, the exact bytes the manifest and the approval are bound to: items.json revision2-review.json report.json manifest-index.json

Timestamp

The import manifest, which lists every topic and problem with a hash of its content, is timestamped in Bitcoin through OpenTimestamps. Anyone can check that the collection existed in this exact form no later than the anchoring block.

• Manifest: 362bc6b25f5a841c… Bitcoin #969,704
• Item list: 614d670cecf03d64… Bitcoin #969,704

Imported 2026-10-03 07:17 UTC.