5min chapter

#637: Stephen Wolfram — Personal Productivity Systems, Richard Feynman Stories, Computational Thinking as a Superpower, Perceiving a Branching Universe, and The Ruliad... The Biggest Object in Metascience

The Tim Ferriss Show

notes

CHAPTER

How Do You Perceive a Branching Universe?

In our model of physics, what's happening is this universe being updated. But if you're at the center of a black hole, it just stops. There's no more update that can be applied. I have tried to stretch the boundaries of how I consider or define time by reading and listening to say Carlo Raveli.

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Transcript

Episode notes

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Stephen Wolfram (@stephen_wolfram) is the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha and the Wolfram Language; the author of A New Kind of Science; the originator of the Wolfram Physics Project; and the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research. Over the course of more than four decades, he has been a pioneer in the development and application of computational thinking and has been responsible for many discoveries, inventions, and innovations in science, technology, and business.

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[06:58] How Stephen collects information for his vast personal archives.

[08:40] When a situation warrants building a matrix.

[12:31] Science sometimes makes us look far back to move incrementally forward.

[17:49] Befriending the computational.

[22:59] How technology helps us navigate natural language.

[32:30] How Stephen chose subjects for his book Idea Makers.

[35:09] On spending time with Richard Feynman.

[37:33] Thoughts on Srinivasa Ramanujan.

[39:57] When Stephen started solving science problems with computers.

[42:00] Heresies today, gospels tomorrow.

[50:14] Ruminations on the ruliad.