arXiv:2607.23753cs.LG2026-07

梳理物理方程发现的评估难题,提出首个系统性评价分类框架。

On the post-hoc Evaluation of PDE Discovery: A Multifaceted Challenge of Scientific Advancement

论文配图:On the post-hoc Evaluation of PDE Discovery: A Multifaceted Challenge of Scientific Advancement
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 构建首个PDE发现评估指标分类体系,涵盖预测精度与物理解释性等多维度
  • 指出现有指标因目标冲突导致结论易被误读,缺乏统一标准
  • 面向算法设计者与实际应用者,推动科学发现的可信评估实践

偏微分方程(PDE)发现旨在从数据中识别物理系统的控制规律,是科学进步的核心。过去十年间,该领域成为物理信息机器学习(PiML)的重要研究方向。然而,事后评估面临多重挑战:需同时考量预测准确性、物理一致性、可解释性及分布外泛化能力,而这些性质常相互冲突。现有评估指标仅部分覆盖此复杂问题,易导致对新物理理论有效性的过度解读。本文基于机器学习、数值分析、信息论与符号回归等领域的大量文献,首次提出PDE评估指标的系统性分类,并深入分析其优劣。鉴于当前评估多依赖具体案例且缺乏通用方法,本文进一步给出标准化建议,以促进可靠实践,并展望未来研究方向。本工作既服务于新算法开发者,也适用于真实场景中寻求科学定律发现与验证的用户。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Partial differential equation (PDE) discovery aims to identify from data the governing law of a physical system. Constituting a cornerstone of scientific advancement, it has become during the past decade a major line of research in the rapidly evolving field of Physics-informed Machine Learning (PiML). Among the remaining open problems to address in this domain, the post-hoc evaluation of discovered PDEs raises the particular difficulty of being multifaceted. Indeed, it requires jointly considering predictive accuracy, physical consistency, interpretability, and out-of-distribution generalization capacity. Given that some of these properties are conflicting, it is worth noting that the wide range of existing evaluation metrics only partially address the overall problem, potentially leading to overly interpreted conclusions about the validity of a presumed new physical theory. From an abundant literature spanning machine learning, numerical analysis, information theory or symbolic regression, we propose, to our knowledge, the first taxonomy of PDE evaluation metrics, and discuss their advantages and limitations in depth. Based on the observation that evaluation is often achieved on a case-by-case basis and that a universally accepted methodology remains elusive, we further provide recommendations with the aim of promoting standardized and reliable practices, before sketching promising future lines of research in this field. We argue that this paper is intended both for ML experts who design new PDE discovery algorithms and for users of these methods aiming, in real applications, to discover and validate well-founded scientific laws.

PDE发现评估框架物理信息学习科学建模

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