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

The Wolfram Physics Project

writings.stephenwolfram.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 342 posts

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#301

Post by Luc »

dang wrote: post #215
thomashobohm wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no stake in this at all and (I literally just learned what "Wolfram Derangement Syndrome" was by reading the comments that you linked to). It looks like you've said several times in the past that the people talking about Wolfram's self-obsession are practicing a "counterversion" of the same thing, but you've never explained why or how; to me, it seems obvious that being obsessed with another person who you don…

I'm talking about a collective phenomenon that accrues out of many individual contributions. Sometimes this is metaphorically called the hivemind. What builds up in these threads is an obsession with Wolfram that is even more Wolfram-obsessed than the Wolfram-obsession Wolfram is charged with. This is unmistakeable, and always happens the same way. Out of the material of these comments, a Golem arises that is a varia…

It's all very meta but this is possibly one of the best comments I've read on HN.

Had a bit of an aha moment.

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#302

Post by Tistron »

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 am also put off by his self-obsession, but it is also true that I discovered how complexity can emerge from simple rules in the 90's. Like wolfram, I was not first, but I did discover it.

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#303

Post by miscPerson »

jiggawatts wrote: post #298
comment_ran wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me what Feynman talk to us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM-zWTU7X-k > If you can find any other view of the world which agrees over the entire range where things have already been observed, but disagrees somewhere else, you have made a great discovery. It is very nearly impossible, but not quite, to find any theory which agrees with experiments over the entire range in which all theories have been ch…

This sums up the last decade of my life. In my spare time I stare out the window trying to dream up a "rule system" that coughs up both relativity and quantum mechanics. It's very hard to even reproduce the basics, let alone the more irritating things like the three generations of particles. That in particular is a good "acid test", and it isn't even mentioned by 90% of the conceptual papers I've been skimming. Quant…

I was curious, so I did the math:

It’s $5M/mo to rent 1 PB of RAM on EC2 and $21,000/mo per PB in S3.

Conceivably, your dreams will be possible in a decade — they are feasible, but likely too costly now.

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#304

Post by jiggawatts »

miscPerson wrote: post #303
jiggawatts wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sums up the last decade of my life. In my spare time I stare out the window trying to dream up a "rule system" that coughs up both relativity and quantum mechanics. It's very hard to even reproduce the basics, let alone the more irritating things like the three generations of particles. That in particular is a good "acid test", and it isn't even mentioned by 90% of the conceptual papers I've been skimming. Quant…

I was curious, so I did the math: It’s $5M/mo to rent 1 PB of RAM on EC2 and $21,000/mo per PB in S3. Conceivably, your dreams will be possible in a decade — they are feasible, but likely too costly now.

That, or I get way better at mathematics. At this rate, I think Moore's law will win. Apparently TSMC is mass-producing 5nm chips and they're building their 3nm fab...

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#305

Post by jmilloy »

dang wrote: post #215
thomashobohm wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no stake in this at all and (I literally just learned what "Wolfram Derangement Syndrome" was by reading the comments that you linked to). It looks like you've said several times in the past that the people talking about Wolfram's self-obsession are practicing a "counterversion" of the same thing, but you've never explained why or how; to me, it seems obvious that being obsessed with another person who you don…

I'm talking about a collective phenomenon that accrues out of many individual contributions. Sometimes this is metaphorically called the hivemind. What builds up in these threads is an obsession with Wolfram that is even more Wolfram-obsessed than the Wolfram-obsession Wolfram is charged with. This is unmistakeable, and always happens the same way. Out of the material of these comments, a Golem arises that is a varia…

You seem very interested in this WDS concept. In fact, I would say it is interesting. But I think citing "please reply to the argument instead of calling names" will be less confusing. Here, calling names is short-hand for criticising/analysing the individual instead of the argument.

To my eyes, the collectively specific hn analysis of Wolfram may be interesting, but it is not relevant to moderation of the content. At the same time, succeeding at moderating away the content means that we can't see it, so it can't actually be interesting or even visible to anyone but you.

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#306

Post by scottlocklin »

TLDR "if you stare at these weird screensavers long enough, it kinda looks like physics. if you are rich enough to hire a PR team to push the idea; lots of credulous people might agree with you."

For an example of similar quackery from quantitative finance, Espen Haug's ideas are funner:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Espen_Haug

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#307

Post by mellosouls »

ur-whale wrote: post #78
mellosouls wrote: post #62

Could somebody explain to Stephen Wolfram physics is already underway and the normal way to join in is to publish your ideas in appropriate venues and submit them to peer review?

Sure, let's force one of the most creative dude of this century back into the rigid pen others are allowed to play in, just in case he does something crazy and interesting. What a lame idea, truly worthy of a mandarin.

Less of the insults please.

As for "one of the most creative dudes of this century", I am puzzled as to how you reach this conclusion.

He certainly seems to be a very bright and capable person, and deserves recognition as the publisher of Mathematica, but that was released last century; what has he created since then that places him so high in your estimation?

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#308

Post by MengerSponge »

mdonahoe wrote: post #290
mdonahoe wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's the paper that established "emergent phenomena" as an interesting and viable field of inquiry. When you understand it, it changes the way you think about the world.

It's more fundamental than automata papers, so of course it doesn't address automata, but automata papers should reference it.

"A New Kind of Science proposed ideas that were not new, were not kind, and were not science. Discuss."

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#309

Post by miscPerson »

jiggawatts wrote: post #304
miscPerson wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious, so I did the math: It’s $5M/mo to rent 1 PB of RAM on EC2 and $21,000/mo per PB in S3. Conceivably, your dreams will be possible in a decade — they are feasible, but likely too costly now.

That, or I get way better at mathematics. At this rate, I think Moore's law will win. Apparently TSMC is mass-producing 5nm chips and they're building their 3nm fab...

As someone who also works on physics models in their spare time — the computational hurdles are real.

Best of luck!

Re: The Wolfram Physics Project

#310

Post by tagrun »

This looks very interesting and impressive, and I hope this will catch Jonathan's eye.

Have you though about how the spin of particles could work in this framework? And have you though about what it would look like to extend local gauge invariance from spacetime to multiway?

(I haven't read the actual papers and the assumptions that went into them yet, but to the summary is very impressive and exciting: a basic framework that can derive general relativity and path integral, put them together in equal footing in an extended "multiway", possibly give natural explanations to several long-standing puzzles of physics [dark matter, dark energy, black holes, black hole information paradox, measurement problem, inflation, dimensionality of the universe, arrow of time, ...]. I don't know if you can eventually find a rule that will result in the standard model, but everything fits so far, and it is possibly not a coincidence. Great work so far! Of course, it may or not may not lead to something that recovers all of the physics that we know today, but regardless, thanks for pursuing this exciting avenue!)

Post reply on HN