How to Recover All of Known Physics

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In the early 19 eighties, Deryoure discovered that a simple programme doesn't always have to do simple things. The idea of simple programs producing complicated behavior is 'the essence of the secret that nature uses to make complicated stuff', he says. And as you make more and more sophisticated computations, such as adding numbers together, they will be seen as "computational equivalents" He explains how this principle can help us recover all known physics.

It’s not easy, figuring out the fundamental laws of physics. It’s even harder when your chosen methodology is to essentially start from scratch, positing a simple underlying system and a simple set of rules for it, and hope that everything we know about the world somehow pops out. That’s the project being undertaken by Stephen Wolfram and his collaborators, who are working with a kind of discrete system called “hypergraphs.” We talk about what the basic ideas are, why one would choose this particular angle of attack on fundamental physics, and how ideas like quantum mechanics and general relativity might emerge from this simple framework.

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Stephen Wolfram received his Ph.D. in physics from Caltech. He is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, and the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha, and the Wolfram Language. Among his awards are a MacArthur Fellowship. Among his books is A New Kind of Science. He recently launched the Wolfram Physics Project.

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