The Last Theory

You know who Stephen Wolfram is, right?

Whether you love him or, you know, don’t love him, there’s no denying that Stephen Wolfram has founded a host of fascinating projects... most of them named Wolfram-something-or-other.

What are all these Wolfram-branded projects?

Who is Stephen Wolfram?

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Some of the things Stephen Wolfram created:

• 1987 Wolfram Research
• 1988 Mathematica
• 2009 Wolfram Alpha
• 2014 Wolfram Language
• 2020 Wolfram Physics

not to mention:

• Wolfram Cloud
• Wolfram One
• Wolfram Notebooks
• Wolfram Player
• Wolfram Script
• Wolfram Engine
• Wolfram Foundation

More about Stephen Wolfram:

• Stephen Wolfram’s web site
• Timeline

Stephen Wolfram’s education:

• University of Oxford
• California Institute of Technology

Some of Stephen Wolfram’s special subjects:

• particle physics
• cellular automata

Some of Stephen Wolfram’s books:

• A New Kind Of Science
• A project to find the Fundamental Theory of Physics

Other people involved in the Wolfram Physics Project:

• Jonathan Gorard
• Max Piskunov

Reference:

• Wolfram Research now has over 800 employees

Image:

• Animation. 1200 iterations of the ‘Rule 110’ Automata by Mr. Heretic licenced under CC BY-SA 3.0

Some of my own projects:

• things made thinkable – visualization of nuclides – tap the binding energy button bottom right to show the binding energy per nucleon
• Open Web Mind – subscribe to the newsletter or YouTube channel for more on shared human intelligence

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

The full article is here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.

I asked Jonathan Gorard the question I’m asked the most: can the Wolfram model make testable predictions about reality, predictions that differ from those of general relativity and quantum mechanics, predictions that might prove that Wolfram Physics is right?

Jonathan showed how the Wolfram model might shed light on some of the most mysterious phenomena of our universe, from black hole inspirals to quantum entanglement.

He focused on four areas where the class of theories encompassed by the Wolfram model might predict observable phenomena:

1. Cosmological consequences of global dimension change

2. Astrophysical consequences of local dimension change

3. Discretization effects during extreme astrophysical events

4. Quantum mechanical effects such as maximum entanglement speed

These dozen minutes of my conversation with Jonathan were dense with insights into Wolfram Physics, a true pleasure to revisit!

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Jonathan Gorard

• Jonathan Gorard at The Wolfram Physics Project
• Jonathan Gorard at Cardiff University
• Jonathan Gorard on Twitter
• The Centre for Applied Compositionality
• The Wolfram Physics Project

Concepts mentioned by Jonathan

• Category error
• Causally connected
• Cosmological inflation
• Lambda-CDM cosmology
• Horizon problem
• Flatness problem
• Magnetic monopole problem
• Cosmic microwave background
• Cosmic neutrino background
• Inflaton scalar fieldhttps://lasttheory.com/channel/055-where-is-the-evidence-for-wolfram-physics
• Quintessent scalar field
• Decoupling time
• Recombination time
• Lensing effects
• LIGO – Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory
• Black hole inspiral
• Causal edge density
• Weyl curvature
• Quadrupole moment
• Entanglement structure
• Branchial graph
• Quantum information theory
• Margolis Leviton bound

People mentioned by Jonathan:

• Alan Guth
• Andrei Linde
• Stephen Wolfram
• Xerxes Arsiwalla
• Abdus Salam

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.

The Open Web Mind is a protocol for shared human intelligence, based on the knowledge hypergraph.

Take a look at this quick introduction for subscribers to The Last Theory, then jump to the 2-minute trailer on the new channel.

And if you haven’t done so already, make sure to subscribe to the new Open Web Mind channel, podcast and newsletter.

If you’re interested in Wolfram Physics, I think you’ll find Open Web Mind fascinating!

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.

How big are electrons compared to the hypergraph?

Is one electron formed of 10 nodes, or 10100 nodes?

And if it’s 10100 nodes, might it prove impossible to simulate an electron on any computer we can possibly imagine?

When I asked Jonathan Gorard this question, he took us on a tour of the scales of the universe, from the Planck scale to the Hubble scale.

He revealed how the Wolfram Physics Project’s early estimate of the scale of the hypergraph was based on a tower of rickety assumptions.

And he explained how the Wolfram model might connect with particle physics regardless of the disparities of scale.

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Jonathan Gorard

• Jonathan Gorard at The Wolfram Physics Project
• Jonathan Gorard at Cardiff University
• Jonathan Gorard on Twitter
• The Centre for Applied Compositionality
• The Wolfram Physics Project

Concepts mentioned by Jonathan

• Planck scale
• Hubble scale
• General relativity
• Fluid mechanics
• Quantum mechanics
• Quantum Field Theory
• Scattering amplitudes

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of the Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.

What if you’re inside a universe, and you want to measure the curvature of space?

It’s important because getting a measure of the curvature of the hypergraph takes us one step further in Jonathan Gorard’s derivation of General Relativity from Wolfram Physics.

Einstein’s equations relate the curvature of space to the presence of matter. So if we’re going to prove that Einstein’s equations follow from the Wolfram model, we’re going to need that measure of the curvature of the hypergraph.

Once again, a two-dimensional crab comes to the rescue, given us a way to measure the curvature of a universe from inside that universe.

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See Stephen Wolfram’s announcement, under Curvature in Space & Einstein’s Equations, also included as the introduction to his book A project to find the Fundamental Theory of Physics, page 20, for more on measuring the curvature of space

Concepts:

• Cosine power series expansion
• Polynomial regression analysis
• Ricci scalar curvature

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of the Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

The full article is here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.

In this excerpt from my conversation with Jonathan Gorard, he proposes that particles in Wolfram Physics might be persistent topological obstructions in the hypergraph.

He starts with a toy model in which elementary particles are non-planar tangles moving and interacting in an otherwise planar hypergraph.

But he doesn’t stop there.

He explains that there’s an infinite variety of hypergraphs that give rise to such persistent topological obstructions.

These localized tangles behave in ways that look a lot like particle physics.

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Jonathan Gorard

• Jonathan Gorard at The Wolfram Physics Project
• Jonathan Gorard at Cardiff University
• Jonathan Gorard on Twitter
• The Centre for Applied Compositionality
• The Wolfram Physics Project

Concepts mentioned by Jonathan

• Utility graph
• Kuratowski’s theorem
• Wagner’s theorem
• Complete graphs – including K_5
• Complete bipartite graphs – including K_3,3
• Robertson-Seymour Theorem
• Graph minor
• Forbidden minor characterization

Image:

• Feynman diagram Feynmann Diagram Gluon Radiation by Joel Holdsworth, public domain

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of the Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.

What if you’re inside a universe, and you want to know whether space is curved?

The reason I’m asking is that according to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, our universe is curved, by the presence of matter.

If Wolfram Physics is to be a true model of our universe, then the space represented by the hypergraph must also be curved by the presence of matter.

Which means that determining whether space is curved is crucial to Jonathan Gorard’s derivation of Einstein’s equations from the Wolfram model.

Fortunately, there’s a way to find out that’s so simple that even a crab or a space frog could do it.

Here’s how to tell if your universe curved.

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Dimensionality:

• How to measure the dimensionality of the universe
• Are Wolfram’s graphs three‑dimensional?
• What are dimensions in Wolfram’s universe?

Space-time:

• Space‑time is dead

Euclidean geometry:

• Euclid
• parallel lines never meet

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of the Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

The full article is here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.

I asked Jonathan Gorard what it felt like when he realized that general relativity can be derived from the hypergraph.

His answer took us in an unexpected direction.

If the Wolfram model is to be an accurate model of our universe, then it must give us the Einstein equations.

But what if any old model with any old rules can give us the Einstein equations?

What if general relativity isn’t so special?

This is one of the shorter excerpts from my conversation with Jonathan, but it’s a fascinating one.

It takes us to one of the most powerful aspects of the Wolfram model: its ability to answer questions about why our universe is the way it is, questions that were once in the realm of philosophy but may now be within the scope of physics.

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Jonathan Gorard

• Jonathan Gorard at The Wolfram Physics Project
• Jonathan Gorard at Cardiff University
• Jonathan Gorard on Twitter
• The Centre for Applied Compositionality
• The Wolfram Physics Project

Concepts mentioned by Jonathan

• Einstein field equations
• Riemannian manifold
• Einstein–Hilbert action
• Causal invariance
• Ergodicity

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of the Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.

In my exploration of Wolfram Physics, I’ve come across one objection more than any other.

Over and over again, people have told me that the Wolfram model must be rejected because it makes no predictions.

I could respond by saying that Wolfram Physics does make predictions. It predicts Einstein’s equations. It predicts Schrödinger’s equation.

But it’s true that it doesn’t make any predictions that differ from those of general relativity and quantum mechanics. At least, not yet.

So here’s my more robust response to the objection: all scientific theories make no predictions when they’re first formulated.

If we dismiss any new theory solely because it doesn’t make any predictions, then we’d dismiss all new theories.

It’s time for academics to learn the lessons of the history of science, and open their minds to bold, new ideas, like Wolfram Physics.

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Ideas:

• Tycho Brahe
• The paths of the planets are elliptical according to Johannes Kepler
• Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton
• Astronomers’ test of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity
• Against Method by Paul Feyerabend
• The Newtonian Casino by Thomas Bass

Ancient astronomies:

• Egyptian astronomy
• Babylonian astronomy
• Inca astronomy

Images:

• Paul Feyerabend Berkeley by Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend reproduced with permission

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of the Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

The full article is here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.

Here’s a masterclass from Jonathan Gorard.

One of the most compelling results to come out of the Wolfram Physics is Jonathan’s derivation of the Einstein equations from the hypergraph.

Whenever I hear anyone criticize the Wolfram model for bearing no relation to reality, I tell them this: Jonathan Gorard has proved that general relativity can be derived from the hypergraph.

In this excerpt from our conversation, Jonathan describes how making just three reasonable assumptions – causal invariance, asymptotic dimension preservation and weak ergodicity – allowed him to derive the vacuum Einstein equations from the Wolfram model.

In other words, the structure of space-time in the absence of matter more or less falls out of the hypergraph.

And making one further assumption – that particles can be treated as localized topological obstructions – allowed Jonathan to derive the non-vacuum Einstein equations from the Wolfram model.

In other words, the structure of space-time in the presence of matter, too, falls out of the hypergraph.

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of this result.

At the very least, we can say that the Wolfram model is consistent with general relativity.

To state it more strongly: we no longer need to take general relativity as a given; instead, we can derive it from Wolfram Physics.

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Jonathan’s seminal paper on how to derive general relativity

• Some Relativistic and Gravitational Properties of the Wolfram Model; also published in Complex Systems

Jonathan Gorard

• Jonathan Gorard at The Wolfram Physics Project
• Jonathan Gorard at Cardiff University
• Jonathan Gorard on Twitter
• The Centre for Applied Compositionality
• The Wolfram Physics Project

People mentioned by Jonathan

• Alfred Gray

Research mentioned by Jonathan

• The volume of a small geodesic ball of a Riemannian manifold by Alfred Gray
• Tubes by Alfred Gray

Concepts mentioned by Jonathan

• Hausdorff dimension
• Geodesic balls, tubes & cones
• Ricci scalar curvature
• Ricci curvature tensor
• Einstein equations
• Einstein–Hilbert action
• Relativistic Lagrangian density
• Causal graph
• Tensor rank
• Trace

From A Project to find the Fundamental Theory of Physics by Stephen Wolfram:

• Dimension
• Curvature

Images

• Spinning and chargend black hole with accretion disk by Simon Tyran, Vienna (Симон Тыран) licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
• Альфред Грэй в Греции by AlionaKo licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of the Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.