The founding of the Wolfram Physics Project with Jonathan Gorard

In 2019, Jonathan Gorard and Max Piskunov goaded Stephen Wolfram into pursuing his ideas for a new kind of science.
This led to the announcement of The Wolfram Physics Project in 2020.
Last week, I talked to Jonathan Gorard about the revolutionary ideas that have come out of the project.
In this first excerpt from our conversation, Jonathan talks about his instrumental role in the founding of The Wolfram Physics Project.
We cover why the time was right in 2020... and why it had been wrong in 2002 when Stephen Wolfram published his book A New Kind of Science.
We talk about how Wolfram Physics might take over from string theory, why Jonathan likes string theory... and why he doesn’t.
It was a true pleasure to talk to Jonathan about what might prove a pivotal moment in the history of science.
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Jonathan Gorard
• Jonathan Gorard at The Wolfram Physics Project www.wolframphysics.org/people...
• Jonathan Gorard at Cardiff University www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view...
• Jonathan Gorard on Twitter / getjonwithit
People and Projects
• The Centre for Applied Compositionality www.appliedcompositionality.com/
• The Wolfram Physics Project www.wolframphysics.org/
• Stephen Wolfram’s announcement of the project writings.stephenwolfram.com/2...
• Max Piskunov www.wolframphysics.org/people...
• SetReplace on GitHub github.com/maxitg/SetReplace
Concepts mentioned by Jonathan
• Irreducibility mathworld.wolfram.com/Computa...
• Undecidability mathworld.wolfram.com/Undecid...
• Universality mathworld.wolfram.com/Univers...
• Current algebra en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current...
• Regge theory en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regge_t...
• Gauge theory en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauge_t...
• Standard Model en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standar...
• String theory en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_...
• Poincaré group en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincar...
• Mirror symmetry en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_...)
• Calabi-Yau manifold en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabi%...
• K3 surface en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K3_surface
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Images
• Calabi-Yau manifold commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... by Andrew J. Hanson, Indiana University, who allows use with attribution
• Feynman diagram commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... by Joel Holdsworth, public domain
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Prefer to listen to the audio? Search for The Last Theory in your podcast player, or listen at lasttheory.com/podcast/020-th...
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[@bobw857]

What a wonderful “get”. I always enjoy hearing Jonathan G speak.

[@lasttheory]

Thanks Bob! Me too. I was delighted to be able to talk to Jonathan, who was extremely generous with his time. There'll be many more excerpts from our conversation to come on this channel!

[@eltyo340]

Can't wait for the rest of the conversation! Great work getting Jonathan on!

[@lasttheory]

Thanks! I'm really grateful to Jonathan for being so generous with his time!

[@francretief1]

Super nice to hear how Wolfram Physics and regular physics relate. Give us more please.

[@lasttheory]

Absolutely. Jonathan and I went into his derivations of both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics from Wolfram Physics, so you'll hear that in future episodes. And I plan do dig into these derivations more deeply in my regular videos. Thanks for following along!

[@TheMemesofDestruction]

Jonathan is Awesome! ^.^

[@kostoglotov2000]

I totally agree.

[@lasttheory]

Yes, Jonathan's an amazing communicator: so many ideas per second! And he's such a great guy: he was really generous giving me so much of his time to record this!

[@ConnoisseurOfExistence]

A friend of mine recommended me an interview of Walfram by Lex Fridman. There I've heard for the first time about the Wolfram physics project and I immediately liked it and looked further into it on their site. I really like his idea that spacetime might be purely emergent from mathematical properties of graphs. I think it simple and elegant, unlike Weinstein's geometric unity, for example. I have my own hypothesis about spacetime being discrete at planck scale and matter and energy being built of the fabric of spacetime itself, much like in The Game of Life. I think that my idea can be further unified with Wolfram's graphs...

[@lasttheory]

Yes, Lex Fridman's conversations with Stephen Wolfram are really great, they cover so much! And yes, matter and energy are important questions. Wolfram has a very precise definition of energy that I'll get into in a future episode. Matter is less easily captured by the model, particles being tangles in the hypergraph, but I'll certainly get into that, too. Thanks for the comment, Nikolay, and thanks for following along; these are exciting times in physics.

[@rentristandelacruz]

Is this part of a longer podcast? If yes, where can I find the rest of the podcast?

[@lavenderlime9017]

He says it's coming in pieces.

[@lasttheory]

Yes, that's right, this is the first excerpt from my 3-hour conversation with Jonathan. I'll get busy editing the rest of it! I'll release the remaining excerpts every other week, alternating with my regular videos. Make sure you're subscribed to get the whole thing!

[@generaltheory]

8:06 I DEMAND MORE OF SUCH EXPLANATIONS

[@lasttheory]

Jonathan was going pretty fast at this point! What I'm hoping to do is dig deeper into much of what Jonathan said in future episodes.

[@generaltheory]

@@lasttheory I've noticed he shoots the toughest things out every 20 minutes or so at the speed that could justify 0.25 button here

[@lasttheory]

@@generaltheory Yes, Jonathan's brilliant, and I, for one, struggle to keep up sometimes! 0.25x might work!

[@tarkajedi3331]

Mind blown!!! I think this all leads to a Nobel....

[@lasttheory]

Yes, my mind is blown too whenever I listen to Jonathan! More excerpts from our conversation coming: I'll be alternating between these and my regular videos.

[@tarkajedi3331]

@@lasttheory I will show this to my students!!! Excellent...

[@sorinsuciu8675]

Thank you - was very keen to hear Jonathan again!!!

[@lasttheory]

Yes, Jonathan's so eloquent! Much more from Jonathan coming on this channel. Thanks for the comment, it's great to hear your feedback!

[@sorinsuciu8675]

@@lasttheory thank you for this, I am a big fan, subscribed to the channel.

[@crifytosp]

definitely got me through the pandemic

[@lasttheory]

Yep! Strange how the pandemic contributed to the launch of The Wolfram Physics Project.

[@williamschacht7076]

Jonathan is clearly bright. I hope that Stephen treats him right. I would be more on board with this Physics Project, if only after such hype of NKS that something more could have been said of turbulence than "we don't know how to solve the nonlinear equations" that (potentially) describe it.

[@lasttheory]

Thanks, William. There _is_ a whole lot more that can be said, if not of turbulence, then at least of how General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics can be derived from the hypergraph. Much more on this coming soon. Thanks for listening!

[@williamschacht7076]

@@lasttheory Derivation from a hypergraph may be interesting/impressive, but it's not groundbreaking. One can derive Navier-Stokes etc. etc. from maybe less humble/exotic beginnings, but much of it is still in progress. Why should Jonathan's work be any different?

[@lasttheory]

@@williamschacht7076 You're right, of course, that derivation of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics from the hypergraph is necessary, rather than sufficient, to indicate the validity of the Wolfram model. Still, I do find it a compelling step in the right direction!

[@thomasbradley2916]

cool i like this guy a lot

[@lasttheory]

Yes, Jonathan’s great, isn’t he? Thanks for the comment!

[@nicov1003]

Loving these videos!

[@lasttheory]

Thanks, that's great to hear!

[@tarkajedi3331]

How on earth did you get Jonathan on your show????

[@lasttheory]

Yep, he's a star, isn't he? I connected with Jonathan on Paul Borrill's "It's About Time". This Clubhouse room can be a bit advanced sometimes - there are plenty of academics there who know way more physics than I do! - but it's definitely worth checking out, not least because both Jonathan and I have been guests (links below). Also, I've been invited back to be a guest there again. If you're subscribed at lasttheory.com/ I'll let you know ahead of time when that'll be! It's About Time - itsabouttime.club/ Jonathan's episode "A Computational+Compositional Perspective on Nature of Time" - www.clubhouse.com/room/PN5BAbY8 My episode "Space and Time in Wolfram Physics" - www.clubhouse.com/room/xovEvLYV

[@EricRogstad]

Is the whole conversation posted anywhere?

[@lasttheory]

Thanks for asking, Eric, but no, I'm editing these chunks of the conversation one at a time, and releasing them as I go along. To watch all the ones I've release so far, see the playlist kzbin.info/aero/PLVwcxwu8hWKnRQLPvKyvn7L206vTY6jt2 I'll add the remaining sections of the conversation to this playlist as soon as I've edited them.

[@csaracho2009]

Put some yellow, green and blue lights to heighten the face features, so we can appreciate better the facial expressions.

[@kostoglotov2000]

Fasten your seat belts and enjoy the ride.

[@lasttheory]

Yep! There's so much more to this conversation: I'm looking forward to editing and releasing the rest of it, where Jonathan and I get deeper into Wolfram Physics.

[@utkarshbajaj4807]

Jimmy Neutron's back!

[@KenrickLeiba]

When see criticism of Wolfram and his theory and then you see Wolfram and Goddard actually talking about the theory you see they are two different beasts entirely. Whether or not the theory holds water or not many of criticisms are completely unfair. In particular the idea that they are being insular and that it somehow portraying the myth of the lone genius when in fact they couldn’t be more open and it’s extremely collaborative.

[@lasttheory]

Yes, I think you have it exactly right. The criticism that the Wolfram approach is unproven is true but misguided: all theories are unproven until they're proven (or disproven). And the criticism that they're not publishing in peer-reviewed journals is simply untrue: _and_ they're going one better by being so open and collaborative. You put it well, thanks!

[@KenrickLeiba]

@@lasttheory I think a good video might be addressing some of the criticisms. There are a lot of articles/interview with physicists and so on that have either misinformation, unfair criticisms or straight up lies. It’s good for scientists to be sceptical, but many of the criticisms border on malicious slander. Criticisms should be on the substance. Often the criticisms come off like people criticise films they haven’t seen. Some have literally said “I have not bothered to look at the this theory “ and then go on to trash it. It’s quite bizarre and unscientific.

[@lasttheory]

@@KenrickLeiba Yes, absolutely, I'd really like to do that video. Maybe even a couple of different videos to address the different concerns. Coming soon!

[@da33smith37]

Hunting through videos looking for ONE "radical idea" and its implications. So far just ramblings indistinguishable from hype. I'm not looking for assertions that "he had lots of wonderful, interesting ideas." I want to see ONE idea and conclude for myself, yes, that's interesting. No luck so far.

[@lasttheory]

How about this for one radical idea: space emerges from the hypergraph. Our existing theories generally presuppose three-dimensional space (or four-or-more-dimensional space-time). The Wolfram model doesn't make this assumption: space emerges from the structure of the hypergraph. Take a look at the hypergraphs in my video _How to knit the universe_ kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZPdk4tsjduWl5o for hypergraph animations that look a little like they're creating space. Thanks for persevering with this, David. I might not convince you to find Wolfram Physics as compelling as I do, but I'll have fun trying!

[@elirane85]

Did anyone who works on this has actually taken any physics classes? I've watched a few of these videos now and it seems like they don't understand what a physics theory is. It's just a bunch of untestable random thoughts.

[@lasttheory]

Sorry you've not got what you're looking for out of my videos yet! Rest assured that yes, we've all taken physics classes, and we all know what a theory of physics looks like... though I'll admit, the Wolfram model does look quite different from traditional theories. If you want to jump straight to some hard physics theorizing, take a look at Jonathan's papers deriving general relativity arxiv.org/abs/2004.14810 and quantum mechanics www.complex-systems.com/abstracts/v29_i02_a02/ from the hypergraph.