The Wolfram Physics Project
writings.stephenwolfram.com
The Wolfram Physics Project
1–10 of 342 posts
Re: The Wolfram Physics Project
#2The phrase 'a new kind of science' is a huge red flag, but apart from this I don't think I can evaluate what I'm reading.
Does the article make any sense? Does it at least hint at a useful direction?
Or is this a case of someone holding a hammer (the language) and seeing everything as a nail (how the universe works)?
Re: The Wolfram Physics Project
#3Stephen Wolfram is well known in the industry as being a pompous, self-indulgent man. There was an old joke I heard which went:
> Q: How do you know if Stephen Wolfram invented something?
> A: He'll tell you.
I saw a TED talk by Conrad Wolfram about using Mathematica as an educational tool [1]. I went to one of my tutorials and tried to discuss it with the Professor (we were encouraged to bring up basically anything we'd seen or encountered in our first few weeks of uni). His response was "I don't think we need to worry about what Conrad Wolfram is saying."
By all accounts, Stephen and Conrad Wolfram are clever men. It is without a doubt that Mathematica is an extraordinary piece of software. Many people here will have benefitted from Wolfram Alpha and will have used Mathematica either in an academic context or in an engineering context.
Stephen Wolfram, however, is not Christ, even though he likes to think so.
Re: The Wolfram Physics Project
#4If I have to read through so much of the article context disguised as bragging without anything resembling something new then maybe this Fundamental Theory is less important than Stephen Wolfram showing how many Important Things he's done
Re: The Wolfram Physics Project
#5Stephen Wolfram is well known in the industry as being a pompous, self-indulgent man. There was an old joke I heard which went: > Q: How do you know if Stephen Wolfram invented something? > A: He'll tell you. I saw a TED talk by Conrad Wolfram about using Mathematica as an educational tool [1]. I went to one of my tutorials and tried to discuss it with the Professor (we were encouraged to bring up basically anything…
That may be true, but science is full of pompous, self-indulgent men who make brilliant discoveries. Of course, science is also littered with cranks who make grandiose claims of discovery - especially in physics.
Curious to hear what people who actually study this stuff think about this supposedly discovery.
Re: The Wolfram Physics Project
#6Wow, this is... the worst. This is the most egregious clickbait I've seen on HN in a long time.
Re: The Wolfram Physics Project
#7If I have to read through so much of the article context disguised as bragging without anything resembling something new then maybe this Fundamental Theory is less important than Stephen Wolfram showing how many Important Things he's done
Oh you don’t remember when Einstein published his papers how he vamped for almost all of it like a Mommy blogger or a recipe spamsite?
Re: The Wolfram Physics Project
#8If I have to read through so much of the article context disguised as bragging without anything resembling something new then maybe this Fundamental Theory is less important than Stephen Wolfram showing how many Important Things he's done
That is the reason we love Stephen Wolfram.
Re: The Wolfram Physics Project
#9If I have to read through so much of the article context disguised as bragging without anything resembling something new then maybe this Fundamental Theory is less important than Stephen Wolfram showing how many Important Things he's done
Oh you don’t remember when Einstein published his papers how he vamped for almost all of it like a Mommy blogger or a recipe spamsite?
IIRC, all of Einstein's papers were just a not-so-subtle advertisement for gaia.com
Re: The Wolfram Physics Project
#10Stephen Wolfram is well known in the industry as being a pompous, self-indulgent man. There was an old joke I heard which went: > Q: How do you know if Stephen Wolfram invented something? > A: He'll tell you. I saw a TED talk by Conrad Wolfram about using Mathematica as an educational tool [1]. I went to one of my tutorials and tried to discuss it with the Professor (we were encouraged to bring up basically anything…
That may be true, but science is full of pompous, self-indulgent men who make brilliant discoveries. Of course, science is also littered with cranks who make grandiose claims of discovery - especially in physics. Curious to hear what people who actually study this stuff think about this supposedly discovery.
The thing is, Wolfram earned his stripes as a very competent physics prodigy, and is clearly very, very smart. But as far as I can tell, no one studies this stuff except him and hist acolytes and I think few established physicists would be inclined too, so it's very difficult to evaluate his ideas.
Is he a crank? For a classic definition of crank, no. Does this work represent a clearer understanding of physics than we had prior, or is it an interesting diversion? Harder question, but one has to assume, probably diversion.
On the other hand if time travel or teleportation IS ever invented, my money is that it will be Wolfram.