With 3.8 Flash on High I noticed a huge upgrade in intricate discussions related to physics, material properties, real-world application, and so on. Things that I've had a hard time getting LLMs to be able to discuss accurately. They often discuss textbook knowledge fine but can't apply it properly or can't think outside the box at all. 3.8 High understands applied material sciences in a way that GPT Astra flunks at often. I asked Gemini to explain that result, and it said basically that GPT was merely book smart in a classical sense and that it was likely undertrained on more obscure material.