The Last Theory

You like Stephen Wolfram, right? I mean, if he’s to be believed, he has reinvented physics, not to mention philosophy. How could you not like such a thinker? Well... it turns out that there are plenty of people who don’t like Stephen Wolfram... or his physics... or his philosophy. Here are four criticisms of Stephen Wolfram I regularly hear... ...and here’s why these criticisms, though they hint a...

In this final excerpt from our conversation in October 2022, Jonathan Gorard explains how ideas from Wolfram Physics can be applied in fields beyond physics, including biology, chemistry and mathematics. He describes the concept of compositionality, and digs deeper into why the hypergraph is able to model so much of our universe. — Jonathan Gorard Jonathan Gorard at The Wolfram Physics Project Jon...

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? — Some of the things Stephen Wolfram created: 1987 Wolfram Research 1988 Mathematica 2009 Wolfram Alpha 201...

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...

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’l...

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...

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 fr...

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 g...

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 wheth...

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...

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...

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 ou...

Here’s the first of two crucial excerpts from my conversation with Jonathan Gorard. The core idea of Wolfram Physics is that we can model the universe as a hypergraph. If we want this idea to be taken seriously, we’re going to have to derive physics from the hypergraph. The twin pillars of physics, as we know it, are quantum mechanics and general relativity. In this episode, Jonathan explains how...

You know peer review, right? It’s the way academics check each other’s research papers. It ensures that only the good ones are published and prevents the bad ones from getting through. Right? Wrong. Peer review does precisely the opposite of what you think it does. It prevents the good papers from being published, and ensures that only the bad ones get through. Peer review is suffocating science....

“Sorry, this is now getting very metaphysical,” says Jonathan Gorard part way through this excerpt from our conversation. We start by talking about applying more than one rule to the hypergraph to create rulial multiway systems. This takes us part way towards applying every possible rule, in other words, towards the ruliad. We move on to the idea of measuring the complexity of a structure in terms...

It’s pretty easy to see how three-dimensional space might arise from Wolfram Physics. The hypergraph kinda looks like space, and, for some rules, it kinda looks like it’s three-dimensional. But our universe isn’t just empty three-dimensional space. It’s mostly empty space, but there are also particles moving through that space: photons, neutrinos, electrons, quarks. Sometimes, these particles inte...

In the early days of the Wolfram Physics Project, Stephen Wolfram seemed to be seeking a single rule that, when applied to the hypergraph, could generate our universe. More recently, however, Wolfram has promoted the idea of the ruliad , the application of every possible rule to the hypergraph. So I asked Jonathan Gorard, who was instrumental in the founding of the Wolfram Physics Project, whether...

John von Neumann might be the most important figure in Wolfram Physics prehistory. Whenever any of the most important prerequisites to Wolfram Physics were happening – quantum mechanics, Gödel’s theorem, Turing machines, electronic computers, cellular automata – John von Neumann always seemed to be there. How did John von Neumann always come to be in the right place at the right time to contribute...

The Wolfram model allows an infinite number of rules. Some of these rules generate interesting universes that are complex and connected, some of these rules generate plausible universes that look a little like our own, and others... go nowhere. In this excerpt from my conversation with Jonathan Gorard, I ask him how to find rules of Wolfram Physics that are both interesting and plausible. — Jonath...

The twentieth century was a truly exciting time in physics. From 1905 to 1973, we made extraordinary progress probing the mysteries of the universe: special relativity, general relativity, quantum mechanics, the structure of the atom, the structure of the nucleus, enumerating the elementary particles. Then, in 1973, this extraordinary progress... stopped. I mean, where are the fundamental discover...

Causal invariance is a crucial characteristic for any rule of Wolfram Physics. According to Wolfram MathWorld, if a rule is causally invariant, then “no matter which evolution is chosen for a system, the history is the same, in the sense that the same events occur and they have the same causal relationships.” Causal invariance is one of the assumptions Jonathan Gorard needs to make to derive the e...

Now that I’ve introduced you to the different kinds of edges that might make up a hypergraph – unary, binary and ternary edges, as well as loops and self-loops – we can have some fun. Some of rules in the Wolfram model give rise to fascinating universes. Today, I’m going to show you a few rules that seem to fabricate space itself in much the same way as knitting needles might fabricate a blanket....

Dugan Hammock creates beautiful animations of three-dimensional cross-sections through four-dimensional spaces. But his animations aren’t mere mathematical abstractions. He has also applied his geometrical skills to animating the hypergraph of Wolfram Physics, in such a way that it doesn’t jump from frame to frame. In this second part of my recent conversation with Dugan, we talk about his extendi...

Causal invariance is one of the most important concepts in the Wolfram model... and one of the most difficult to capture. So I really wanted to hear Jonathan Gorard’s take on it. In this excerpt from our conversation, Jonathan addresses the differences between causal invariance and confluence. Causal invariance means that regardless of the order in which a rule is applied to the hypergraph, the sa...

So many of the most complex and most promising graphs and hypergraphs of Wolfram Physics involve loops and self-loops. They can play a crucial role in the evolution of graphs and hypergraphs... which means that they might play a crucial role in the evolution of the universe itself. Loops and self-loops matter , because including them in our models reduces the number of arbitrary assumptions we nee...