31–40 of 342 posts
Wolfram's press release focused method of advancing his "scientific advances" is so off putting, and highly suspicious that it is more hype that really something new.
I wonder if this hapless postdoc-equivalent is going to get sued, too!
His stuff just amounts to large claims and a lot of fiddling around. Its certainly possible that something could come out of it (I mean the idea "physics is just some rules" is vacuously true) but I don't see in any of the work surrounding his ideas any true attempt to get to the bottom of things by trying very hard to understand basic ideas like locality and unitarity and how they must be true or may be violated by physical models which are deeper than the ones we have.
If you want to see that kind of actual hard scientific work, see Nima Arkani Hamad or Gerard 't Hooft.
I, personally, was a bad researcher, which is why I couldn't cut it as an academic. What made me bad was that I got lost in fiddling around rather than trying to hit the most incisive questions in the most useful ways. I see a lot of that in Wolfram.
So, hats off. Even if this isn't the Big Idea, maybe it'll end up sparking an idea in someone else's head down the road that gets us there.
I am not a physicist but as a layman there are two interesting things that my mind (which admittedly finds connections in things that others don't) thought of while reading the article: 1) Conway has obviously been in the news recently (RIP) and there have been quite a few articles talking about his "Game of Life". The fact that complex patterns emerge from three basic rules seems eerily similar to what Wolfram is no…
2) Yep, it will happen in future, but infinity is not possible in simulation.
After a few iterations, I think I understand the point of this piece. It was a bit difficult to hone in on, though. The article suggests that working out the theory of something like rule production systems, and then figuring out how that theory relates to existing insights from physics, is the best path toward a Fundamental Theory of Physics. My primary source of skepticism stems from the fact that the theory of rul…
Have ideas from computer science had significant reach inside theoretical physics before? It seems like physics has only recently discovered its love-affair with information theory, but information theory had existed for a long time before quantum information theory became a hot area of study. Maybe what's new here are not the ideas themselves, but bringing them into an area of study that hasn't payed attention to th…
Besides, Stephen's approach here is to ignore 15-20 years of research from various CS sub-communities; his best case scenario is spending a decade reinventing that wheel. The problem with cross-talk that isn't "humble on both sides" is that it's either a) a waste of time because one side's ideas aren't that important, or else b) a waste of time because one side has to reinvent the other wise.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have ideas from computer science had significant reach inside theoretical physics before? It seems like physics has only recently discovered its love-affair with information theory, but information theory had existed for a long time before quantum information theory became a hot area of study. Maybe what's new here are not the ideas themselves, but bringing them into an area of study that hasn't payed attention to th…
Maybe. I doubt it, though. There has always been substantial cross-talk between CS/information theory and Physics. Even through the 1990s it was difficult to be a computer scientist without eventually coming into contact with a non-trivial number of physicists. Especially in industrial research labs. Bell Labs, PARC, and IBM Research were full of physicists. Bell Labs and PARC are dead, but AFAIK IBM Research still h…
In terms of "humility on both sides", it's such a common theme that this oft-cited assumption is taken as truth. Some of the greatest minds who had the most impact in our history were also insufferable assholes, who were stubborn and would not yield until people were forced to reckon with their ideas. Is this me defending Wolfram's ideas? No. But it's me defending the idea that "humility and civility" as a prerequisite for scientific advancement seems false, and in fact, in stagnant fields, the need for a disruptive personality who happens to be right may be perhaps the only real way out of the rut.
I'll just say it, I love Stephen Wolfram. The fact he gets under so many peoples' skins, and yet keeps leading teams producing amazing stuff (Wolfram Alpha, Wolfram Language, etc) gets an A+ in my book. Anyone who puts so much energy into this stuff, which such ego, obviously wants to contribute in a real and meaningful way to ensure his own understanding and his legacy. A personality flaw? Sure. But we've seen bigge…
I'm genuinely not sure why you believe this especially as we live in an era when theoretical physics and experimental physics are becoming so entwined and the product is a fairly successful testing of our models of physics.