# The phases of the Free Lunch Project

URL: https://goudbeek.com/en/free-lunch-project/phases
Language: en
Last updated: 2026-10-21
Provider: Goudbeek — Almere, the Netherlands — samgoudbeek2007@gmail.com

> First one AI algorithm that computes heat in seconds instead of hours. If that works, specialists for flow, materials and chemistry follow, and then a team of specialists that compute together.

First one algorithm that computes physics. If that works, more follow.

## One algorithm for heat

We start with one specialised AI model for one kind of physics: heat. It learns from exact simulations we generate ourselves, with the laws of nature built into the model, and gives in seconds the answer a classical simulation takes hours over. A classical solver then finishes that answer exactly, so it is not estimated but checked.

Heat is the best place to start. It plays a part wherever precision, safety or energy counts, and the question is always the same: how does the heat spread, and what does that do to the design?

### What it can solve

- Precision machines: Steel grows by about twelve micrometres per metre for every degree. The model shows where a machine warms up and how much it expands with it.
- Chips and chip machines: Heat is one of their hardest design limits. Computing it in seconds means testing far more designs in the same time.
- Batteries: How warm the cells get and where a pack needs cooling. Heat decides how safe it is and how long it lasts.
- Heat exchangers and installations: How the heat goes through an installation, and so how efficient it is and how long it lasts.

Phase 1 has succeeded when the model gives the same answer as the classical simulation on designs it has never seen, in seconds instead of hours. We measure that at every step, against the classical simulation and against general language models.

Phase 2 · If phase 1 succeeds

## More physics, more specialists

If it works for heat, we build specialists for the other physics in a design the same way. One model per kind of problem, each learning from its own exact simulations, with its own laws of nature built in.

### The next specialists

- Flow: How air and liquid move around and through a design.
- Materials: How a material holds up under force and temperature.
- Chemistry: How molecules behave and react with one another.

## A team of specialists

In a real design these things happen at once. Heat makes metal expand, flow carries heat away, and the chemistry in a battery makes heat. In the last phase the specialists work together: each computes its own part, and together they give the whole picture, still in seconds.

That keeps the idea behind the project standing. Not one model that can do a little of everything, but a team of specialists that each fit their problem exactly.

There is no free lunch. There is a specialist that fits the problem exactly.

[Read the story of the Free Lunch Project](https://goudbeek.com/en/free-lunch-project)

Want to know more, or think along? [Get in touch.](https://goudbeek.com/en/contact)