Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An approach to the fundamental theory of physics

wolframphysics.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 83 posts

Re: An approach to the fundamental theory of physics

#21

Post by bowsamic »

andrewflnr wrote: post #19
Certhas wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work close to people who were actually somewhat close to the stuff contained in the papers. The consensus was that there is nothing of substance to engage with. Edit: When the technical papers appeared in 2020, I personally went through them in some detail. Tl;dr there are almost no novel ideas of substance in there. Specifically I looked at the "launch documents" provided here: https://wolframphysics.org/t…

Is it just because it hasn't gotten as far as making physical predictions yet? To put it charitably it's very abstract, but I wonder exactly where the holes are that real physicists see.

Physicists won’t take a look at a new theory unless the person pushing it can demonstrate very good reasons for physicists to do so. Generally those have to be quite concrete reasons: for example explaining a known phenomenon in a much clearer or more intuitive way, or allowing the explanation of systems that weren’t easy to conceptualise of before, etc.

But ultimately it’s up to Wolfram to come up with those things. I don’t think most physicists feel he has done that, especially since the standards increase as the idea becomes more different to existing physics

Re: An approach to the fundamental theory of physics

#22

Post by ProAm »

dakiol wrote: post #18

Despite all the negativity towards Wolfram, he’s one of the few out there whom I’m jealous about. He gets to work on his own products, gets time to develop his own theories about important stuff and using his own tools. That’s basically my dream. Who cares if at the end, his findings have “no substance”, he’s living the (nerd) dream.

This is actually the first Ive heard about any negativity. Are there a couple articles about whats not to like? To be far, I only know about his website and some tool, and that he's intelligent and good at math (which is likely not enough knowledge about that guy), but I always assumed his work was geared towards serious researchers and not really meant for someone like me (little math and physics).

I'm not trying to stir the pot or create infighting on HN, just Ive never heard a bad thing about him until I see the comments here.

Re: An approach to the fundamental theory of physics

#23

Post by leephillips »

In over 20 years since the publication of A New Kind of Science, Wolfram’s approach had not led to a single prediction, neither verified nor falsified, about the natural world. I would very much like to be corrected about this if I’m wrong.

Physicists show that their ideas have substance by solving problems. But Wolfram’s ideas don’t tell us the masses of the elementary particles, the drag of the flow of water through a pipe, or anything else.

This is why the scientific community doesn’t care about this stuff.

Re: An approach to the fundamental theory of physics

#24

Post by amelius »

dakiol wrote: post #18

Despite all the negativity towards Wolfram, he’s one of the few out there whom I’m jealous about. He gets to work on his own products, gets time to develop his own theories about important stuff and using his own tools. That’s basically my dream. Who cares if at the end, his findings have “no substance”, he’s living the (nerd) dream.

He's one of the few people who were able to turn scientific software into a profitable business. That's quite an achievement.

Re: An approach to the fundamental theory of physics

#25

Post by drdeca »

Certhas wrote: post #12
rdtsc wrote: post #10

Are there any well respect physicists or research groups independent of Wolfram's group who are taking this seriously or collaborating with Wolfram Physics project? I would expect something like "an here is Max Planck Institute for Physics collaborating with Wolfram Physics research project on ...". Or something of that nature. At least after all these years.

I used to work close to people who were actually somewhat close to the stuff contained in the papers. The consensus was that there is nothing of substance to engage with. Edit: When the technical papers appeared in 2020, I personally went through them in some detail. Tl;dr there are almost no novel ideas of substance in there. Specifically I looked at the "launch documents" provided here: https://wolframphysics.org/t…

I’ve seen it claimed that the project has led to to a way of doing a numerical simulation of GR which is, in some cases more efficient?

If true, that still seems like something of merit, even if the project doesn’t give any progress in fundamental understanding of physics?

Maybe, rather than as they hope, being a path towards a theory of everything, it could instead be a path towards a framework for understanding good ways to do numerical simulations that respect causality, while not necessarily doing all of one time coordinate everywhere (in some reference frame) before computing later times anywhere?

Re: An approach to the fundamental theory of physics

#26

Post by sesm »

Certhas wrote: post #8
sesm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like string theory - a framework with tons of free parameters which will never produce a coherent physical theory, but you can always write a paper that contains a promise of explaining any observation with the right fine-tuning of some parameters (the promise will never be fulfilled, of course).

It is utterly unlike string theory. String theory is a very rigid coherent theory. It has produced plenty of deep mathematical insights. I personally don't believe that it describes our universe, but it is possible to calculate its properties. Wolframs "Theory" is a bunch of relatively conventional ideas (by high energy physics theory standards), tied together by wishful thinking and speculation. In parts it seems al…

"Not even wrong" is a title of a book about String Theory by Peter Woit.

I've noticed a common tactic in online disinformation campaigns: taking a common term associated with critique of some concept and spamming it in a different (sometimes opposite) context, to break the semantic link.

Re: An approach to the fundamental theory of physics

#27

Post by jereees »

rdtsc wrote: post #10

Are there any well respect physicists or research groups independent of Wolfram's group who are taking this seriously or collaborating with Wolfram Physics project? I would expect something like "an here is Max Planck Institute for Physics collaborating with Wolfram Physics research project on ...". Or something of that nature. At least after all these years.

Yes, Jonathan Gorard is a Wolfram Physics alumni

https://x.com/getjonwithit

Re: An approach to the fundamental theory of physics

#28

Post by Certhas »

drdeca wrote: post #25
Certhas wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work close to people who were actually somewhat close to the stuff contained in the papers. The consensus was that there is nothing of substance to engage with. Edit: When the technical papers appeared in 2020, I personally went through them in some detail. Tl;dr there are almost no novel ideas of substance in there. Specifically I looked at the "launch documents" provided here: https://wolframphysics.org/t…

I’ve seen it claimed that the project has led to to a way of doing a numerical simulation of GR which is, in some cases more efficient? If true, that still seems like something of merit, even if the project doesn’t give any progress in fundamental understanding of physics? Maybe, rather than as they hope, being a path towards a theory of everything, it could instead be a path towards a framework for understanding goo…

If you have a citation or more information on that, I'd be curious. Numerical relativity is outside my area of expertise. It doesn't seem likely to me, but I couldn't rule it out...

Re: An approach to the fundamental theory of physics

#29

Post by ahazred8ta »

ProAm wrote: post #22
dakiol wrote: post #18

Despite all the negativity towards Wolfram, he’s one of the few out there whom I’m jealous about. He gets to work on his own products, gets time to develop his own theories about important stuff and using his own tools. That’s basically my dream. Who cares if at the end, his findings have “no substance”, he’s living the (nerd) dream.

This is actually the first Ive heard about any negativity. Are there a couple articles about whats not to like? To be far, I only know about his website and some tool, and that he's intelligent and good at math (which is likely not enough knowledge about that guy), but I always assumed his work was geared towards serious researchers and not really meant for someone like me (little math and physics). I'm not trying to…

He was a child prodigy and published world-class work on quarks, QM, and subatomic particles while he was still a teenager. More recently he has been more interested in an imaginary world that only exists in his imagination and on paper. He's made a lot of discoveries there and insists that the analogy between his discoveries and the real world is major big brain stuff. He's still very productive in math and computer science, but not in physics.

Re: An approach to the fundamental theory of physics

#30

Post by Certhas »

sesm wrote: post #26
Certhas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is utterly unlike string theory. String theory is a very rigid coherent theory. It has produced plenty of deep mathematical insights. I personally don't believe that it describes our universe, but it is possible to calculate its properties. Wolframs "Theory" is a bunch of relatively conventional ideas (by high energy physics theory standards), tied together by wishful thinking and speculation. In parts it seems al…

"Not even wrong" is a title of a book about String Theory by Peter Woit. I've noticed a common tactic in online disinformation campaigns: taking a common term associated with critique of some concept and spamming it in a different (sometimes opposite) context, to break the semantic link.

Not even wrong is a quip attributed to Wolfgang Pauli. This is where Woit got his blog and book title from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong

Post reply on HN