Theory of everything?

[jeffreyi]

I've never posted in this group, but just ran across this, thought it was worth sharing.

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2020/04/finally-we-may-have-a-path-to-the-fundamental-theory-of-physics-and-its-beautiful/

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Well, that's interesting.

I just sent the link to My Son the Astronomer.

He and I often talk about the conditions of the early Universe, meaning I ask him questions and he tries to explain things to me.

[Duppers]

2. Thank you for posting this.

I'm passing it on to 2 physicists.

It'll take a long time to go thru all the info, equations, & proofs and try to understand the concepts, but looks as if it'd be very interesting to ppl with the technical capacity & intelligence to follow & understand.

👍

[caraher]

3. Wolfram has a talent for self-promotion

I skimmed through what he wrote but can't really evaluate it on its merits; however, last last huge breakthrough work ("A New Kind of Science&quot didn't seem to be the revolution he promised. From a particularly scathing review:

... it is my considered, professional opinion that A New Kind of Science shows that Wolfram has become a crank in the classic mold, which is a shame, since he's a really bright man, and once upon a time did some good math, even if he has always been arrogant.

<snip>

Let me try to sum up. On the one hand, we have a large number of true but commonplace ideas, especially about how simple rules can lead to complex outcomes, and about the virtues of toy models. On the other hand, we have a large mass of dubious speculations (many of them also unoriginal). We have, finally, a single new result of mathematical importance, which is not actually the author's. Everything is presented as the inspired fruit of a lonely genius, delivering startling insights in isolation from a blinkered and philistine scientific community.

Sounds like it could be more of the same... the only other people he mentions by name in his lengthy post explaining his great breakthrough are young graduate students (Gorard and Piskunov) who also happen to work for him teaching his summer school.

[jeffreyi]

4. Ouch.

Not so long ago they would have fetched the duelling pistols and prepared to meet at dawn.

[caraher]

7. Indeed!

I'm not sure enough of Wolfram was left standing after that broadside for him to make the duel

[NNadir]

5. I briefly looked through "A New Kind of Science" a few years back...

...and it didn't inspire me deeply.

That said, Wolfram Mathematica is a pretty widely used tool and from what I've seen of it - which is not all that much - it seems impressive; although in my son's undergraduate work, they had a semi-serious class on it, but mostly for just number crunching stuff, I'm told they tend to use MatLab.

Of course, people make fun of Matlab: There's an old football rivalry between my son's university and a neighboring university and someone hung a poster from a dorm reading "[Other University] Computer Scientists Program in Matlab!" which was thought to be a great insult.

[caraher]

6. I am a fan of Mathematica

I think its sweet spot is different from Matlab... Matlab is better for working with data, Mathematica is better for "pure math" and closely-allied physics. Most of my use of Mathematica is pretty basic - most commonly for doing integrals... it has a bit of a learning curve but if you're patient you can probably find a way to code almost any problem in Mathematica.

So I am grateful to Wolfram for the software. I'm a bit more skeptical of his work in physics, given that his last peer-reviewed publication came in 1987!

[NNadir]

8. To be honest, I never thought all that much about Wolfram himself.

The program is impressive however.

Actually though, most of my software needs are pretty much met by commercial packages.

Mathematica does have a lot of useful stuff if you want to dig for it, but generally, I don't.

[mohamedghouse]

9. The scientist created a material that is stronger than diamond

I hope this article will give you some recent update in the scientific field

https://healthandsciencereview.com/the-scientist-created-a-material-that-is-stronger-than-diamond/