PhysicsArena: The First Multimodal Physics Reasoning Benchmark Exploring Variable, Process, and Solution Dimensions

Song Dai, Yibo Yan, Jiamin Su, Zihao Dongfang, Yubo Gao, Yonghua Hei, Jungang Li, Junyan Zhang, Sicheng Tao, Zhuoran Gao, Xuming Hu


Abstract
Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in diverse reasoning tasks, yet their application to complex physics reasoning remains underexplored. Physics reasoning presents unique challenges, requiring grounding in physical conditions and the interpretation of multimodal information. Current physics benchmarks are limited, often focusing on text-only inputs or solely on problem-solving, thereby overlooking the critical intermediate steps of variable identification and process formulation. To address these limitations, we introduce **PhysicsArena, the first multimodal physics reasoning benchmark designed to holistically evaluate MLLMs across three critical dimensions: variable identification, physical process formulation, and solution derivation.** PhysicsArena aims to provide a comprehensive platform for assessing and advancing the multimodal physics reasoning abilities of MLLMs.
Anthology ID:
2025.findings-emnlp.937
Volume:
Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2025
Month:
November
Year:
2025
Address:
Suzhou, China
Editors:
Christos Christodoulopoulos, Tanmoy Chakraborty, Carolyn Rose, Violet Peng
Venue:
Findings
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
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Pages:
17290–17316
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URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2025.findings-emnlp.937/
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Cite (ACL):
Song Dai, Yibo Yan, Jiamin Su, Zihao Dongfang, Yubo Gao, Yonghua Hei, Jungang Li, Junyan Zhang, Sicheng Tao, Zhuoran Gao, and Xuming Hu. 2025. PhysicsArena: The First Multimodal Physics Reasoning Benchmark Exploring Variable, Process, and Solution Dimensions. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2025, pages 17290–17316, Suzhou, China. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
PhysicsArena: The First Multimodal Physics Reasoning Benchmark Exploring Variable, Process, and Solution Dimensions (Dai et al., Findings 2025)
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https://aclanthology.org/2025.findings-emnlp.937.pdf
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