When she was 10 years old, Rose Yu got a birthday present that would change her life—and, potentially, the way we study physics. Yu went on to major in computer science at Zhejiang University, where she won a prize for innovative research. This work has brought Yu closer to her grand dream—deploying a suite of digital lab assistants that she calls AI Scientist. She now envisions what she calls a “partnership” between human researchers and AI tools, fully based on the tenets of physics and thus capable of yielding new scientific insights. Quanta spoke with Yu about turbulence in its many guises, how to get more out of AI, and how it might get us out of urban gridlock.