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The Wolfram Physics Project

writings.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#281

Post by primitivesuave »

Razengan wrote: post #241
dang wrote: post #138

I'm going to try to merge the other thread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867707 ) hither. Please stand by. Edit: that's done. I adopted the other title, in the hope that it will have less of a flamebait effect. All: no more Wolfram Derangement Syndrome comments, please. They're off topic because they're always the same, and they compose into a weird counterversion of the very thing they're deriding. https:…

As a layman bystander walking by: What makes Stephen Wolfram controversial?

I used to work at Wolfram Research and directly interacted with SW on a project he took personal interest in, so I feel a bit more qualified than most to answer this. Stephen is without doubt a brilliant mind, and the way he thinks, his attention to detail, and his broad vision of computing are unique in their depth and philosophical impact.

However, his seminal work titled A New Kind Of Science is frequently critiqued as unscientific in its exposition of its core theories. Other scientific works of SW are similarly criticized for bypassing scientific peer-review and offering little substantive theory. I won't comment further on this so you can form your own opinion.

Here are a collection of reviews of NKS: http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~wclark/ANKOS_reviews.html

Here is my favorite review for its balance and lack of cynicism: https://www.kurzweilai.net/reflections-on-stephen-wolfram-s-...

At the end of the day, say what you want about his theories - he is a wonderful, nurturing man who set me on the course to what I am doing today. He gave me my first programming job and allocated valuable time of the brilliant minds at Wolfram Research toward making even the interns productive and excited to work there. His son Christopher is a mirror of his brilliance and will certainly be making significant contributions to science in his own time.

5 years after I left WR, I received his latest book in the mail with a simple handwritten note - "Is this relevant to what you're working on?". It was. I cherish the man and his mind, despite any criticism directed at his work.

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#282

Post by JoachimS »

gazzini wrote: post #226
JoachimS wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading through the paper in (3) above. If I understand the text on page 26 correctly, you predict that quantum computers will not be more efficient than classical computers: "The class of problems that can be solved efficiently by quantum computers should be identical to the class of problems that can be solved efficiently by classical computers: More precisely, we predict in this appropriately coarse-grained case t…

In your last sentence, you compare future quantum computers to “today’s” non-quantum computers, which might be a false dichotomy. [warning: uninformed tangent] A more optimistic interpretation could be that quantum & non-quantum machines will be similar because we have huge leaps to make in non-quantum computer architecture. This is strictly a theoretical thought-experiment for me, but it has always intrigued me that…

> In your last sentence, you compare future quantum computers to “today’s” non-quantum computers, which might be a false dichotomy.

Ah, good point.

Though I was more thinking of Shor's algorithm and Grover's algorithm that tells us the theoretical expected performance that could be achieved with quantum computers. Normally these are described as showing the speedup provided by a possible quantum computer (in relation to non-quantum computers).

So, when reading the Wolfram Model paper I cited, I read the statement regarding quantum computers as dismissing the possibility of achieving qantum computers capable of realising Shor's and Grover's.

But one could of course read it in a flip-side way, that there are algorithms out there to be discovered that achieves the same lower bound complexities on non-quantum machines.

Considering that the Wolfram Model is all about graphs and cellular automata, the statement should probably be considered not based on a RAM complexity model, but something like PRAM that considers parallelism.

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#283

Post by neosat »

Not qualified to comment on the depth of physics in there, but the theory sounds very intriguing and fascinating. It's important to push our collective thinking - and the authors definitely have the expertise to do that.

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#284

Post by [deleted] »

knzhou wrote: post #102

I don't see anything of substance here, besides a lot of pretty graphs. Just like Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science", we have the problem that there is a vast gulf between what you need to make flashy popsci and what you need to make a real physical theory. In increasing order of difficulty, you need to: 1. make a set of dynamical rules that matches general relativity in the low energy limit, such as recovering Lorent…

[deleted]

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#285

Post by downerending »

Razengan wrote: post #241
dang wrote: post #138

I'm going to try to merge the other thread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867707 ) hither. Please stand by. Edit: that's done. I adopted the other title, in the hope that it will have less of a flamebait effect. All: no more Wolfram Derangement Syndrome comments, please. They're off topic because they're always the same, and they compose into a weird counterversion of the very thing they're deriding. https:…

As a layman bystander walking by: What makes Stephen Wolfram controversial?

As the "Wolfram Derangement Syndrome" alludes, he has a very unique style, not unlike our President. And as in that case, it's probably a trap to critique that style and better to simply critique the ideas.

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#286

Post by mdonahoe »

MengerSponge wrote: post #19
teh_g wrote: post #2

The 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)?

It doesn't pass the smell test. I'll be very diplomatic and say this to our high school and undergrad readers: Mathematica is a lovely program, but working for this man on this project will not do good things for your scientific career. Among the many many many red flags, Wolfram claims to have discovered that complexity can emerge from simple rules in the early 80's. This is a full decade after P. W. Anderson's semi…

I can’t seem to access more than the cover page of that paper.

Do I need a journal membership?

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#287

Post by igravious »

AgentME wrote: post #256
igravious wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Perhaps the single most[0] significant idea conveyed within Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science , and the initial intellectual seedling from which the contents of the book subsequently grow, is the abstract empirical discovery that the “computational universe” - that is, the space of all possible programs - is far richer, more diverse and more vibrant than one might reasonably expect. The fact that such intricat…

>[4] Why just one rule? Is a specific combination of rules not itself a rule? A lot of descriptions of Conway's Game of Life describe it as multiple rules, and other places refer to its whole setup as a "rule". Rule 30 is sometimes called a "rule set". I don't think there's a strict difference between a rule set and a rule, though the simpler rule(set) the better seems to be easy to agree on. ... >(5) I would direct…

> I don't think there's a strict difference between a rule set and a rule

Okay then. Why just one rule or rule set? I meant as much when I wrote what I wrote.

Why a tiny/simple initial starting state and one rule (or rule set). Sure, simple elegant formal systems are enticing to our brains but why assume that of our universe? Why not even try to explain why you feel this to be true? It's a pretty huge assumption in my eyes.

> A theory with fewer free parameters is better than one with more.

Sure. But the full statement is – the theory which is in best accordance with reality and with fewer free parameters is better. Starting from some entirely arbitrary simple formal system and working upwards and hoping you'll bump into reality along the way is very, shall we say, optimistic. And I do mean entirely arbitrary. Because you haven't motivated why this system rather than another this system is entirely arbitrary.

> Is that not an obstacle for any theory?

Yes, and with good reason. Because TOEs claim to be fundamental – how can they be fundamental if there's something underneath them so to speak. Which came first: the PC or Windows? Can't have one without the other.

> Personally, I found their intro to have a lot more background detail and motivation explained.

I didn't.

> Is your primary objection really that they were too grand for a few paragraphs?

I object to it on stylistic grounds and also, you know, I'll be the judge of the intellectual consequences of your theory. Lay out your theory and leave others hype it up if they so wish. (I'm so sorry if asking for a little intellectual humility is asking for too much these days. /s)

But mostly I object to the huge leap in their argument (as I said). It'd be nice for once if people like this were more honest that intuitively speaking there clearly are big gaps in their reasoning.

> I feel like you're treating this as if he's asking everyone to commit themselves fully to this model instead of to explore it.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing. Why should I explore it if you don't give me a compelling reason to explore it?

> Presumably they chose those systems to play around to begin with because they believe those systems were promising.

No. They chose the formal system they were familiar with.

And you skipped my whole part about making testable predictions. Which is a pretty big part.

If I want to read breathless computer science / physics / mathematics articles I've got Quanta Magazine for that: https://www.google.com/search?q=+%22fundamental%22+site%3Aww...

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#288

Post by kvathupo »

JoachimS wrote: post #193
jonathan_gorard wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) We certainly do have formal derivations of Lorentz covariance and the Einstein field equations, given in detail here: http://wolframcloud.com/obj/wolframphysics/Documents/some-re... (2) The article above already discusses the derivation of the matter contribution to the Lagrangian density, the derivation of energy-momentum tensor, and Lorentz transformations for elementary particles. (3) Both Hawking radiation an…

Reading through the paper in (3) above. If I understand the text on page 26 correctly, you predict that quantum computers will not be more efficient than classical computers: "The class of problems that can be solved efficiently by quantum computers should be identical to the class of problems that can be solved efficiently by classical computers: More precisely, we predict in this appropriately coarse-grained case t…

I'm certainly going to look forward to Scott Aaronson's response

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#289

Post by crubier »

Nice! This will be seen in the future either as a Nobel prize winning, first revolutionary paper on the theory of everything, or as just another marketing white paper for Mathematica. I can’t tell, but it is interesting for sure!

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#290

Post by mdonahoe »

mdonahoe wrote: post #286
MengerSponge wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't pass the smell test. I'll be very diplomatic and say this to our high school and undergrad readers: Mathematica is a lovely program, but working for this man on this project will not do good things for your scientific career. Among the many many many red flags, Wolfram claims to have discovered that complexity can emerge from simple rules in the early 80's. This is a full decade after P. W. Anderson's semi…

I can’t seem to access more than the cover page of that paper. Do I need a journal membership?

Found a pdf linked from his Wikipedia page

http://robotics.cs.tamu.edu/dshell/cs689/papers/anderson72mo...

Though I must admit I don’t really understand it. I was expecting automata to be referenced somewhere.

I enjoyed A New Kind of Science, though I feel like it would have been a much shorter book if Wolfram included less self-aggrandizing.

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