#124 – Stephen Wolfram: Fundamental Theory of Physics, Life, and the Universe

Stephen Wolfram is a computer scientist, mathematician, and theoretical physicist. This is our second conversation on the podcast.

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Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:
00:00– Introduction
07:14– Key moments in history of physics
12:43– Philosophy of science
14:37– Science and computational reducibility
22:08– Predicting the pandemic
38:58– Sunburn moment with Wolfram Alpha
39:46– Computational irreducibility
46:45– Theory of everything
52:41– General relativity
1:01:16– Quantum mechanics
1:06:46– Unifying the laws of physics
1:12:01– Wolfram Physics Project
1:29:53– Emergence of time
1:34:11– Causal invariance
1:53:03– Deriving physics from simple rules on hypergraphs
2:07:24– Einstein equations
2:13:04– Simulating the physics of the universe
2:17:28– Hardware specs of the simulation
2:24:37– Quantum mechanics in Wolfram physics model
2:42:46– Double-slit experiment
2:45:13– Quantum computers
2:53:21– Getting started with Wolfram physics project
3:14:46– The rules that created our universe
3:24:22– Alien intelligences
3:32:29– Meta-mathematics
3:37:58– Why is math hard?
3:52:55– Sabine Hossenfelder and how beauty leads physics astray
4:01:07– Eric Weinstein and Geometric Unity
4:06:17– Travel faster than speed of light
4:16:59– Why does the universe exist at all