5 ms·

As rich eccentrics go, I much prefer the ones trying to advance science (like Wolfram) or medicine (like Gates) to the ones just building more superyachts and l

by m12k 5y ago

As rich eccentrics go, I much prefer the ones trying to advance science (like Wolfram) or medicine (like Gates) to the ones just building more superyachts and lobbying corrupt politicians. I don't really understand the animosity toward Stephen Wolfram on HN - has he done something evil or been super rude to someone? Maybe he has a big ego, but I think that's probably true of a lot of - if not most - of the rich and/or influential people that are discussed on here, whether Bezos, Gates, Jobs, Musk or Stallman. It takes a certain hubris to think you can make a dent in the universe. Why is that if your hubris is to believe you can make a billion dollar startup, HN is all "you go girl!" but if someone wants to do theoretical physics, they really need to check their ego? I don't know if cellular automata as a foundation of physics will turn out to be a revolution or a dud. I do know that we've been looking for a unified theory of quantum gravity for many decades to no avail. If somebody is motivated to come at the thing from a new perspective, then more power to them. Are they likely to succeed? Of course not, statistically the vast majority of theories don't. But just working to provide new perspectives is a worthwhile goal, and I'm glad he's working on it.

throwaway81523 5y ago
The issue is he makes a bunch of apparently empty claims about his hypergraph stuff being related to physics. The pictures are pretty and the hypergraph stuff is perhaps interesting in its own right, but with all the hand waving about QM and GR, I looked pretty hard a couple of years ago and couldn't find any explanation of the most familiar QM phenomena like the double slit experiment. It's almost like free association. I'd like to see this new theory solve one problem, and by that I don't mean an open research problem. I mean pick any homework problem from an introductory QM course and apply this stuff to it. As Feynman used to say, you have to get the numbers out. As far as I can tell, that hasn't happened.
- dTal 5y ago
  Even that would prove nothing. Wolfram himself makes a pretty big deal about how cellular automata, being Turing-complete, can model anything. I can give you any number of cellular automata that model our current understanding of quantum physics right now, no problem. It only becomes interesting if it can make different, better predictions than our existing theories.
  - throwaway81523 5y ago
    > I can give you any number of cellular automata that model our current understanding of quantum physics right now, no problem Ok, I'm interested in seeing something like that. If you have a link, I'll take a look--thanks. (If you're thinking of 't Hooft's, then I know about it, but its predictions are in serious conflict with mainstream physics, from what I understand).
    - dTal 5y ago
      It's not really that interesting. Can you write it in a computer program? Then you can write it in a cellular automata, because many of them are Turing complete: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110#The_proof_of_universality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110#The_proof_of_universa... https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Turing_machine https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Turing_machine And yes, this is a cheap trick. That's the point. "Porting" our current theories to some new, whacky substrate, peeking at the textbooks all the while, is Not Interesting and will not lead to new results.
      - SiempreViernes 5y ago
        As using CA like a substrate is clearly "theory free" in the sense it doesn't impose any restrictions on how calculations should be done, do you concede that CA doesn't actually provide any theory as the OP lamented?
        dTal 5y ago
        ...concede it? That was my point... Wolfram's new physics is based on "hypergraphs", not quite cellular automata, but the point stand that they are an entirely general framework, and therefore useless for the stated purpose.
      - throwaway81523 5y ago
        No I don't see how to implement QM as a computer program while preserving basic complexity invariants of Turing machines. That is the point of quantum computing: that the complexity classes for quantum computers are different than those for Turing machines. If you take the view that that the whole Universe is one gigantic entangled quantum state, the cellular automaton simulation would get pretty bogged down.
- m12k 5y ago
  > I looked pretty hard a couple of years ago and couldn't find any explanation of the most familiar QM phenomena like the double slit experiment I was following links from the OP, and while reading his Wolfram Physics one year update[1] I came across this: https://www.wolframphysics.org/bulletins/2020/08/a-short-note-on-the-double-slit-experiment-and-other-quantum-interference-effects-in-the-wolfram-model/ https://www.wolframphysics.org/bulletins/2020/08/a-short-not... [1] https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/the-wolfram-physics-project-a-one-year-update/ https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/the-wolfram-phys...
  - throwaway81523 5y ago
    Thanks, that helps, I haven't made sense of it yet but at least it shows that the issue isn't being ignored.
dTal 5y ago
> I don't really understand the animosity toward Stephen Wolfram on HN - has he done something evil or been super rude to someone? He's super rude to pretty much the entire scientific community, by essentially pretending to have invented cellular automata and ignoring everyone else's contributions - even to the point of suppressing them by wielding the legal axe of copyright law: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30941559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30941559

by m12k 5y ago

throwaway81523 5y ago

The issue is he makes a bunch of apparently empty claims about his hypergraph stuff being related to physics. The pictures are pretty and the hypergraph stuff is perhaps interesting in its own right, but with all the hand waving about QM and GR, I looked pretty hard a couple of years ago and couldn't find any explanation of the most familiar QM phenomena like the double slit experiment. It's almost like free association. I'd like to see this new theory solve one problem, and by that I don't mean an open research problem. I mean pick any homework problem from an introductory QM course and apply this stuff to it. As Feynman used to say, you have to get the numbers out. As far as I can tell, that hasn't happened.

dTal 5y ago
Even that would prove nothing. Wolfram himself makes a pretty big deal about how cellular automata, being Turing-complete, can model anything. I can give you any number of cellular automata that model our current understanding of quantum physics right now, no problem. It only becomes interesting if it can make different, better predictions than our existing theories.
- throwaway81523 5y ago
  > I can give you any number of cellular automata that model our current understanding of quantum physics right now, no problem Ok, I'm interested in seeing something like that. If you have a link, I'll take a look--thanks. (If you're thinking of 't Hooft's, then I know about it, but its predictions are in serious conflict with mainstream physics, from what I understand).
  - dTal 5y ago
    It's not really that interesting. Can you write it in a computer program? Then you can write it in a cellular automata, because many of them are Turing complete: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110#The_proof_of_universality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110#The_proof_of_universa... https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Turing_machine https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Turing_machine And yes, this is a cheap trick. That's the point. "Porting" our current theories to some new, whacky substrate, peeking at the textbooks all the while, is Not Interesting and will not lead to new results.
    - SiempreViernes 5y ago
      As using CA like a substrate is clearly "theory free" in the sense it doesn't impose any restrictions on how calculations should be done, do you concede that CA doesn't actually provide any theory as the OP lamented?
      - dTal 5y ago
        ...concede it? That was my point... Wolfram's new physics is based on "hypergraphs", not quite cellular automata, but the point stand that they are an entirely general framework, and therefore useless for the stated purpose.
    - throwaway81523 5y ago
      No I don't see how to implement QM as a computer program while preserving basic complexity invariants of Turing machines. That is the point of quantum computing: that the complexity classes for quantum computers are different than those for Turing machines. If you take the view that that the whole Universe is one gigantic entangled quantum state, the cellular automaton simulation would get pretty bogged down.
m12k 5y ago
> I looked pretty hard a couple of years ago and couldn't find any explanation of the most familiar QM phenomena like the double slit experiment I was following links from the OP, and while reading his Wolfram Physics one year update[1] I came across this: https://www.wolframphysics.org/bulletins/2020/08/a-short-note-on-the-double-slit-experiment-and-other-quantum-interference-effects-in-the-wolfram-model/ https://www.wolframphysics.org/bulletins/2020/08/a-short-not... [1] https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/the-wolfram-physics-project-a-one-year-update/ https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/the-wolfram-phys...
- throwaway81523 5y ago
  Thanks, that helps, I haven't made sense of it yet but at least it shows that the issue isn't being ignored.

dTal 5y ago

> I don't really understand the animosity toward Stephen Wolfram on HN - has he done something evil or been super rude to someone? He's super rude to pretty much the entire scientific community, by essentially pretending to have invented cellular automata and ignoring everyone else's contributions - even to the point of suppressing them by wielding the legal axe of copyright law: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30941559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30941559