The Last Theory

Different observers, from different regions of the ruliad, experience the universe in different ways.

To what extent can these different observers communicate their different experiences?

Can dogs, with their olefactory ways of mapping their worlds through scent, truly understand humans, with our one-dimensional ways of mapping our world through language?

Can humans, with our one-dimensional streams of language, truly understand AI image generators, with their parallel diffusion models?

If we ever met aliens, would we be able to communicate with them?

How might it be to think like an...

The ruliad is every possible computation. What could you possibly say about such an enormous, all-encompassing object?

Well, that’s where we come in.

Particular observers sample the ruliad in particular ways.

Observers like us sample the ruliad in ways that give rise to physics as weknow it.

Ruliad + observer = physics.

In this excerpt from my conversation with Stephen Wolfram, he explores how physics, mathematics and biology all arise from this same enormous, all-encompassing object, the ruliad.

He gets to aliens, too, asking such provocative questions as ho...

The hypergraphs generated by Wolfram Physics are complex and chaotic.

The multiway graphs that trace every possible evolution of these hypergraphs become extremely complex and extremely chaotic after only a few iterations.

The causal graphs that plot which of the events in these multiway graphs has to happen before which of the other events look like spaghetti.

If we’re going to find mass/energy or momentum in Wolfram Physics – or special relativity or general relativity or quantum mechanics – then the causal graph is the place to look.

But if we’re going...

It’s been a while since my last episode of The Last Theory or Open Web Mind.

Where am I?

It might look like I’m lazing in the sun, but actually I’ve been working hard.

For The Last Theory, I’ve been working on a long episode, more involved than any I’ve ever made, and more important than any I’ve ever made.

It’ll unlock mass/energy, momentum, special relativity, general relativity and quantum mechanics.

And I’ve been working on Open Web Mind, too, making serious p...

Electrons may be tiny black holes propagating through the hypergraph.

After all, electrons and black holes have much in common: they’re carriers of pure motion, they’re all the same – from the outside, at least – and we don’t know what’s going on inside them.

Just as black holes may cloak the remants of collapsed civilizations, so electrons may hold secret histories of their paths through the universe.

Stephen Wolfram takes this idea further. If particles, such as electrons, are the carriers of pure motion in physical space, what are the carriers of...

The multiway graph shows every possible evolution of the universe.

So, if we can compute every possible reality, does that mean that there’s no single objective reality?

Well, the causal graph, it turns out, collapses every possible reality into a single objective reality in a way that’s so unexpected that you’ll be left wondering: how did that just happen?

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References:

In this fascinating exposition, Stephen Wolfram connects two of the most important breakthroughs of our time: AI and the ruliad.

I ask Stephen how he thinks about knowledge hypergraphs, which I’m exploring at Open Web Mind.

He offers several important insights.

Stephen draws a distinction between human-like minds and formal knowledge.

Human-like minds include both our own brains and Large Language Models. Such minds, Stephen suggests, are good at making broad but shallow connections.

Formal knowledge, on the other hand, is deep and precise. Stephen has spent a li...

Can you hold in your mind two different threads of experience?

In this five-minute excerpt from my conversation with Stephen Wolfram, he introduces the strange idea of a multiway mind.

Most of the time, we as observers succeed in weaving multiple different paths through the multiway graph into a single thread of experience.

In some circumstances, however, we’re unable to do this. If we’re unfortunate enough to find ourselves on the surface of a black hole – at the event horizon in physical space, at the entanglement horizon in branchial space – we might fi...

Fields don’t exist.

I mean, a field with grass in it, that kind of field does exist.

But a field in physics?

A gravitational field? An electric field? A magnetic field? A quantum field?

No such thing.

I’m not knocking the physicists who came up with these fields.

These fictions can be convenient.

But sometimes, these fictions can blind us to the underlying reality.

And that’s what’s happening right now in physics.

Our long-time love affair with fields i...

In the previous excerpt from my conversation with Stephen Wolfram, I asked him how I can remain a single, coherent, persistent consciousness in a branching universe.

In this excerpt, we went deeper into this question. As a conscious observer, I have a single thread of experience. So if the universe branches into many timelines, why don’t I branch into many versions of me?

Stephen’s answer touched on many profound aspects of the Wolfram model.

He started with the failure of the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics to consider the...

When the universe branches, we branch with it.

Those branches don’t remain forever apart. They come back together.

So we, as conscious observers, are rescued from splitting into an immense number ever-so-slightly different versions of ourselves.

When the branches of the universe – and the versions of ourselves – come back together, we don’t worry that the many paths we took to get there are ever-so-slightly different.

We equivalence all those different paths. We treat all those ever-so-slightly different branches of history as if they were more-or-less the same.

I asked...

The causal graph is at the core of Wolfram Physics.

It’s crucial to the derivations of Special Relativity, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

And if that’s not enough to convince you that you need to know about the causal graph, how about this:

The causal graph is a reflection of the nature of causality, the nature of objectivity, the nature of reality itself.

—

Einstein’s train thought experiment

What is the multiway graph? video ⋅ podcast ⋅ article

What precisely is...

Is everything that’s ever going to happen in the universe already determined?

Or does something else – maybe randomness, maybe free will – play a role?

Stephen Wolfram’s answer to this question is straightforward: the ruliad is fully determined.

But there’s a twist. The ruliad is determined, but how we observe the evolution of the universe depends on where we are in the ruliad.

In a fascinating introduction to the role of the observer in the Wolfram model, Stephen touches on some of the deepest philosophical questions in physics, finishing on one of...

Hypergraphs can have any number of dimensions. They can be 2-dimensional, 3-dimensional, 4.81-dimensional or, in the limit, ∞-dimensional.

So how does the three-dimensional space we observe emerge from the hypergraph-based Wolfram model?

Why is space three-dimensional?

Stephen Wolfram’s surprising answer to this questions goes deep into space, time, computation and, crucially, our nature as observers.

—

Stephen Wolfram

People mentioned by Stephen

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of Open Web...

Stephen Wolfram reveals that his first major wow along the path towards a fundamental theory of physics was his realization that General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are the same theory, played out in different kinds of space.

Many other dominos have fallen along the way, from the derivation of Einstein’s equations to applications of the ruliad beyond physics.

But the aspect of Wolfram Physics that Stephen Wolfram himself finds maybe the most compelling is this mirroring of the two pillars of twentieth century physics.

Perhaps General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics aren’t as i...

It feels like everyone has their pet Theory of Everything these days.

So why should you take my preferred Theory of Everything seriously?

Well, give me 5 minutes, and I’ll give you 5 reasons why I find Wolfram Physics more compelling than anything else that’s happened in physics in my lifetime...

...and maybe you’ll want to take it seriously too.

—

The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

The full...

Here’s a question.

Why does the universe exist?

Why is there something rather than nothing?

One of Stephen Wolfram’s boldest claims is that he has the answer.

Let me know whether you’re convinced by his argument!

—

Ideas:

People:

—

The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

The full article is h...

Do you know what causality is?

If you do, let me know, because I’m not sure.

I’ve never come across a conception of causality that makes sense to me.

After all, our universe seems to follow simple equations like Einstein’s equations, and there’s no mention of causality in these equations.

It makes me think that there’s no such thing as causality.

Unless...

Well, here’s the thing.

I’m no longer sure that our universe does follow these continuous equations.

I’m begin...

Causal invariance is a crucial concept in Wolfram Physics.

It’s how we get special relativity from the Wolfram model.

It’s how we get quantum mechanics from the Wolfram model.

So what precisely is causal invariance?

This question will take us deep into the multiway graph, to an even deeper question: what is causality?

—

What is the multiway graph? video ⋅ podcast ⋅ article

—

The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of Open Web Mind

I release...

I’ve heard from many of you that you’d like the whole of my conversation with Jonathan Gorard in a single podcast.

So here it is, the complete first interview.

These three hours are a brilliant exposition of Wolfram Physics from a figure whose contributions to the project are second to none.

—

Jonathan Gorard

Jonathan’s seminal papers

You like Stephen Wolfram, right?

I mean, if he’s to be believed, he has reinvented physics, not to mention philosophy.

How could you not like such a thinker?

Well... it turns out that there are plenty of people who don’t like Stephen Wolfram... or his physics... or his philosophy.

Here are four criticisms of Stephen Wolfram I regularly hear...

...and here’s why these criticisms, though they hint at uncomfortable truths, nonetheless miss the mark.

—

Stephen Wolfram:

In this final excerpt from our conversation in October 2022, Jonathan Gorard explains how ideas from Wolfram Physics can be applied in fields beyond physics, including biology, chemistry and mathematics.

He describes the concept of compositionality, and digs deeper into why the hypergraph is able to model so much of our universe.

—

Jonathan Gorard

Concepts mentioned by Jonathan:

You know who Stephen Wolfram is, right?

Whether you love him or, you know, don’t love him, there’s no denying that Stephen Wolfram has founded a host of fascinating projects... most of them named Wolfram-something-or-other.

What are all these Wolfram-branded projects?

Who is Stephen Wolfram?

—

Some of the things Stephen Wolfram created:

not to mention:

More about Stephen Wolfram:

Stephen...

I asked Jonathan Gorard the question I’m asked the most: can the Wolfram model make testable predictions about reality, predictions that differ from those of general relativity and quantum mechanics, predictions that might prove that Wolfram Physics is right?

Jonathan showed how the Wolfram model might shed light on some of the most mysterious phenomena of our universe, from black hole inspirals to quantum entanglement.

He focused on four areas where the class of theories encompassed by the Wolfram model might predict observable phenomena:

1. Cosmological consequences of global dimension change

2. As...

The Open Web Mind is a protocol for shared human intelligence, based on the knowledge hypergraph.

Take a look at this quick introduction for subscribers to The Last Theory, then jump to the 2-minute trailer on the new channel.

And if you haven’t done so already, make sure to subscribe to the new Open Web Mind channel, podcast and newsletter.

If you’re interested in Wolfram Physics, I think you’ll find Open Web Mind fascinating!

—

The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind

How big are electrons compared to the hypergraph?

Is one electron formed of 10 nodes, or 10100 nodes?

And if it’s 10100 nodes, might it prove impossible to simulate an electron on any computer we can possibly imagine?

When I asked Jonathan Gorard this question, he took us on a tour of the scales of the universe, from the Planck scale to the Hubble scale.

He revealed how the Wolfram Physics Project’s early estimate of the scale of the hypergraph was based on a tower of rickety assumptions.

And he expl...

What if you’re inside a universe, and you want to measure the curvature of space?

It’s important because getting a measure of the curvature of the hypergraph takes us one step further in Jonathan Gorard’s derivation of General Relativity from Wolfram Physics.

Einstein’s equations relate the curvature of space to the presence of matter. So if we’re going to prove that Einstein’s equations follow from the Wolfram model, we’re going to need that measure of the curvature of the hypergraph.

Once again, a two-dimensional crab comes to the rescue...

In this excerpt from my conversation with Jonathan Gorard, he proposes that particles in Wolfram Physics might be persistent topological obstructions in the hypergraph.

He starts with a toy model in which elementary particles are non-planar tangles moving and interacting in an otherwise planar hypergraph.

But he doesn’t stop there.

He explains that there’s an infinite variety of hypergraphs that give rise to such persistent topological obstructions.

These localized tangles behave in ways that look a lot like particle physics.

—

Jonathan Gorard

What if you’re inside a universe, and you want to know whether space is curved?

The reason I’m asking is that according to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, our universe is curved, by the presence of matter.

If Wolfram Physics is to be a true model of our universe, then the space represented by the hypergraph must also be curved by the presence of matter.

Which means that determining whether space is curved is crucial to Jonathan Gorard’s derivation of Einstein’s equations from the Wolfram model.

Fortunatel...

I asked Jonathan Gorard what it felt like when he realized that general relativity can be derived from the hypergraph.

His answer took us in an unexpected direction.

If the Wolfram model is to be an accurate model of our universe, then it must give us the Einstein equations.

But what if any old model with any old rules can give us the Einstein equations?

What if general relativity isn’t so special?

This is one of the shorter excerpts from my conversation with Jonathan, but it’s a fasc...

In my exploration of Wolfram Physics, I’ve come across one objection more than any other.

Over and over again, people have told me that the Wolfram model must be rejected because it makes no predictions.

I could respond by saying that Wolfram Physics does make predictions. It predicts Einstein’s equations. It predicts Schrödinger’s equation.

But it’s true that it doesn’t make any predictions that differ from those of general relativity and quantum mechanics. At least, not yet.

So here’s my more robust response to the objection...

Here’s a masterclass from Jonathan Gorard.

One of the most compelling results to come out of the Wolfram Physics is Jonathan’s derivation of the Einstein equations from the hypergraph.

Whenever I hear anyone criticize the Wolfram model for bearing no relation to reality, I tell them this: Jonathan Gorard has proved that general relativity can be derived from the hypergraph.

In this excerpt from our conversation, Jonathan describes how making just three reasonable assumptions – causal invariance, asymptotic dimension preservation and weak ergodicity – allowed him to derive the vacuum Einstein equations from the Wolf...

Here’s the first of two crucial excerpts from my conversation with Jonathan Gorard.

The core idea of Wolfram Physics is that we can model the universe as a hypergraph. If we want this idea to be taken seriously, we’re going to have to derive physics from the hypergraph.

The twin pillars of physics, as we know it, are quantum mechanics and general relativity.

In this episode, Jonathan explains how quantum mechanics can be derived from the Wolfram model, indeed, how quantum mechanics unexpectedly fell out of the model.

It’s a fa...

You know peer review, right?

It’s the way academics check each other’s research papers.

It ensures that only the good ones are published and prevents the bad ones from getting through.

Right?

Wrong.

Peer review does precisely the opposite of what you think it does.

It prevents the good papers from being published, and ensures that only the bad ones get through.

Peer review is suffocating science.

If we want to reverse the stagnation of science over the last 50 years, then we’v...

“Sorry, this is now getting very metaphysical,” says Jonathan Gorard part way through this excerpt from our conversation.

We start by talking about applying more than one rule to the hypergraph to create rulial multiway systems.

This takes us part way towards applying every possible rule, in other words, towards the ruliad.

We move on to the idea of measuring the complexity of a structure in terms of the minimum amount of information needed to express it.

Jonathan applies this idea to the ruliad, pointing out that it takes almost no info...

It’s pretty easy to see how three-dimensional space might arise from Wolfram Physics.

The hypergraph kinda looks like space, and, for some rules, it kinda looks like it’s three-dimensional.

But our universe isn’t just empty three-dimensional space.

It’s mostly empty space, but there are also particles moving through that space: photons, neutrinos, electrons, quarks.

Sometimes, these particles interact, annihilating each other and producing new particles.

If Wolfram Physics is to be a successful model of our universe, it must, of course, model these elementary particles and thei...

In the early days of the Wolfram Physics Project, Stephen Wolfram seemed to be seeking a single rule that, when applied to the hypergraph, could generate our universe.

More recently, however, Wolfram has promoted the idea of the ruliad, the application of every possible rule to the hypergraph.

So I asked Jonathan Gorard, who was instrumental in the founding of the Wolfram Physics Project, whether all rules might be applied to generate our universe, or whether he was searching for one rule to rule them all.

—

Stephen Wolfram’s 2010 TED talk in w...

John von Neumann might be the most important figure in Wolfram Physics prehistory.

Whenever any of the most important prerequisites to Wolfram Physics were happening – quantum mechanics, Gödel’s theorem, Turing machines, electronic computers, cellular automata – John von Neumann always seemed to be there.

How did John von Neumann always come to be in the right place at the right time to contribute to some of the most significant developments in physics, mathematics and computation history?

For this, another high-budget, big-hair episode of The Last Theory, I flew all the way to Budapes...

The Wolfram model allows an infinite number of rules.

Some of these rules generate interesting universes that are complex and connected, some of these rules generate plausible universes that look a little like our own, and others... go nowhere.

In this excerpt from my conversation with Jonathan Gorard, I ask him how to find rules of Wolfram Physics that are both interesting and plausible.

—

Jonathan Gorard

The pa...

The twentieth century was a truly exciting time in physics.

From 1905 to 1973, we made extraordinary progress probing the mysteries of the universe: special relativity, general relativity, quantum mechanics, the structure of the atom, the structure of the nucleus, enumerating the elementary particles.

Then, in 1973, this extraordinary progress... stopped.

I mean, where are the fundamental discoveries in the last 50 years equal to general relativity or quantum mechanics?

Why has there been no progress in physics since 1973?

For this high-budget, big-hair episode of The Last Theory, I flew all the way...

Causal invariance is a crucial characteristic for any rule of Wolfram Physics.

According to Wolfram MathWorld, if a rule is causally invariant, then “no matter which evolution is chosen for a system, the history is the same, in the sense that the same events occur and they have the same causal relationships.”

Causal invariance is one of the assumptions Jonathan Gorard needs to make to derive the equations of General Relativity from the hypergraph. That’s how crucial it is! 

Given that not every rule of Wolfram Physics is causally invariant, I asked Jonatha...

Now that I’ve introduced you to the different kinds of edges that might make up a hypergraph – unary, binary and ternary edges, as well as loops and self-loops – we can have some fun.

Some of rules in the Wolfram model give rise to fascinating universes.

Today, I’m going to show you a few rules that seem to fabricate space itself in much the same way as knitting needles might fabricate a blanket.

And if you think that knitting is a far-fetched analogy, just wait until you see my animations!

–

I rel...

Dugan Hammock creates beautiful animations of three-dimensional cross-sections through four-dimensional spaces.

But his animations aren’t mere mathematical abstractions. He has also applied his geometrical skills to animating the hypergraph of Wolfram Physics, in such a way that it doesn’t jump from frame to frame.

In this second part of my recent conversation with Dugan, we talk about his extending spring-electrical embedding into an additional time dimension...

...and we show some of the beautifully smooth animations that come out of it.

—

Dugan Hammock

Causal invariance is one of the most important concepts in the Wolfram model... and one of the most difficult to capture.

So I really wanted to hear Jonathan Gorard’s take on it.

In this excerpt from our conversation, Jonathan addresses the differences between causal invariance and confluence.

Causal invariance means that regardless of the order in which a rule is applied to the hypergraph, the same events occur, with the same causal relationships between them.

Confluence, on the other hand, is the coming-together of different branches of the multiway graph.

So many of the most complex and most promising graphs and hypergraphs of Wolfram Physics involve loops and self-loops.

They can play a crucial role in the evolution of graphs and hypergraphs... which means that they might play a crucial role in the evolution of the universe itself.

Loops and self-loops matter, because including them in our models reduces the number of arbitrary assumptions we need to make in Wolfram Physics, making it more complete.

–

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

The full article is...

Dugan Hammock lives in the fourth dimension.

As Jonathan Gorard mentioned in our recent conversation on How to draw the hypergraph in Wolfram Physics, Dugan has worked on plotting the evolution of the hypergraph over time.

We get into that in the second part of our conversation, but in this first part, I get to know Dugan as a mathematician and artist.

Enjoy his amazing animations of three-dimensional cross-sections through four-dimensional hypershapes!

—

Dugan Hammock

Computational irreducibility means that there are no shortcuts when we apply rules to the hypergraph.

I used to think that our existing theories of physics, such as general relativity and quantum mechanics, were examples of computational reducibility: shortcuts that allow us to make higher-level generalizations about how the application of rules to the hypergraph gives rise to our universe.

Jonathan Gorard used to think this, too.

But it turns out that over the last couple of years, he has changed his mind on this quite radically.

General...

There are two questions about Wolfram Physics I’m asked a lot:

What’s beyond the hypergraph?

And what’s between the nodes and edges of the hypergraph?

There’s a simple answer to this question.

Nothing.

There’s nothing beyond the hypergraph.

There’s nothing beyond the universe.

But it’s not a very effective answer.

So here’s a deeper response to the age-old question:

What’s beyond the universe?

–

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watc...

The hypergraph is the universe.

So if we want to see the universe, we need only draw the hypergraph.

The question is: how?

The nodes and edges of the hypergraph are determined by the rules of Wolfram Physics. But how we draw those nodes and edges is not determined.

The drawing of the hypergraph is not the universe, it’s just a way of visualizing the universe.

So I asked Jonathan Gorard how we might decide where to position the nodes and edges when we draw the hy...

What is the Big Bang in Wolfram Physics?

There’s a straightforward answer to that question.

It’s the point in the evolution of the universe where the hypergraph goes from nothing to something.

It’s the start of the explosion that eventually yields the uncountable particles, planets, stars and galaxies of our universe.

So that’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it?

Well, yes, except that there’s one phrase above that demands further explanation: nothing to something.

How does the universe go from nothing to something?

–

Here’s a slightly technical question:

Does Wolfram Physics really need hypergraphs?

Or could it based on graphs instead?

Jonathan Gorard shares some interesting insights into the evolution of Stephen Wolfram’s model for a fundamental theory of physics.

Wolfram started with trivalent graphs, in which each edge joins two nodes, and each node has three edges.

But when he ran into issues implementing simulations using these simple graphs, he solved the problem by graduating to hypergraphs, in which each hyperedge can join any number of nodes, and each node...

I’ve been blown away by your response to The Last Theory in 2022.

How am I going to thank you for reading, listening, watching and subscribing?

Well, by bringing you more Wolfram Physics in the New Year, that’s how.

Here are 7 directions I want to take The Last Theory in 2023.

—

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

The full article is here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.

Wolfram Physics is based on hypergraphs.

Why?

What is it about hypergraphs that might make them a better model of the universe than, say, strings of characters, or cellular automata, or Turing machines?

When I asked Jonathan Gorard this question, he gave an answer that was deeply insightful.

It’s such a core question, so fundamental to why we should take the Wolfram model seriously, that I’ve listened to Jonathan’s answer over and over.

—

Jonathan Gorard

For the last few hundred years, all our theories of physics have been mathematical.

If Stephen Wolfram is right, from now on, our most fundamental theories of physics may be computational.

This shift from mathematics to computation feels to me like a scientific revolution.

Recently, I asked Jonathan Gorard, who was instrumental in the founding of The Wolfram Physics Project, whether it feels to him, too, like a scientific revolution.

“I think so,” he said. “I mean, it’s a strong statement, but I don’t think it’ll end up being too in...

Jonathan Gorard admits that it was a risk, for his academic career, to work on the Wolfram Physics project.

In this third excerpt from my recent conversation with Jonathan, I asked him how he thought about that risk and why he decided to take it.

He told me that the opportunity to work with Stephen Wolfram on this new model is a bit like being given an opportunity to work with von Neumann and Ulam on cellular automata, or with Turing, Church and Gödel on computational models, back in the early twentieth century.

In Episode 15: Where to apply Wolfram’s rules? (listen to the audio ⋅ watch the video ⋅ read the article) I introduced a radical idea.

When we’re applying a rule to a graph in Wolfram Physics, there are generally many possible places in the graph we could apply the rule, giving us many possible next states of the universe.

Here’s the radical idea: rather than choose one of these possible universes, we choose not to choose. Instead, we keep each of them in mind.

The trouble is, if we choose not to choose, the number...

This is the second of a series of excerpts from my recent conversation with Jonathan Gorard, who was instrumental in the founding of The Wolfram Physics Project.

I asked Jonathan why he found the computational approach to physics so compelling.

In his answer, he broached a wide range of fascinating topics in the philosophy of science:

In my conversation with Jonathan Gorard about the founding of the Wolfram Physics Project, I said that I don’t like String Theory.

Now, I’ll admit, I don’t really understand String Theory.

It’s highly mathematical. And I’m not much of a mathematician. Actually, that’s an understatement. I’m not a mathematician at all.

So if there’s a problem in the relationship between String Theory and me, it might not be String Theory, it might be me.

Sadly, admitting that I might be part of the problem doesn’t...

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...

Wolfram Physics models the universe as a hypergraph.

Maybe I’m just seeing things, but it seems to me that hypergraphs are everywhere: physics, chemistry, biology, neurology, ecology, sociology, technology.

What I want to know is:

Why?

Why are hypergraphs everywhere?

—

Molecular structure Styrene-butadiene chain2 by Guido Raos, professor of chemistry, Politecnico di Milano, Italy licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Metabolic pathway BRENDA pyrimidine metabolism by BRENDA – The Comprehensive Enzyme Information System licensed under CC BY 4.0

Brain image Neurons & glia b...

As you’ll know from Episode 8: Where’s the computer that runs the universe? ( read ⋅ listen ⋅ watch ), I have my doubts about the existence of a computer that’s whirring away, applying Wolfram’s rules to Wolfram’s graphs, performing the computations required to run our universe.

This computer, if it exists, is necessarily invisible to us, and as I warned in Episode 12: Beware invisible things ( read ⋅ listen ⋅ watch ) we should be wary of what we can’t see.

Still, I want to revisit this idea of a computer that runs the universe.

I want to come at it...

Here are answers to some fundamental questions about hypergraphs:

A hyperedge can connect any number of nodes: one, two, three, four, seventeen or any other number.

And a hypergraph can include any of these different kinds of hyperedge, or all of them.

Let’s take a look at what this means for Wolfram Physics... and at some of the beautiful hypergraphs it allows us to generate!

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

The full article is here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.

In previous episodes, I’ve been simulating Wolfram Physics using graphs.

But you may have come across simulations of Wolfram Physics using hypergraphs.

What’s the difference?

What is a hypergraph?

—

This epsiode refers to previous episodes on dimensionality:

and previous episodes on space:

Confession time: I haven’t been entirely honest with you about applying a rule to a graph in Wolfram Physics.

I’ve explained precisely how to apply a rule, but I’ve been strangely silent when it comes to where to apply the rule.

I know, it’s unlike me to be silent, right?

Time to come clean.

It turns out that the question of where to apply Wolfram’s rules is not as easily answered as you might think.

This seemingly straightforward question will take us into the philosophy...

In his General Theory of Relativity, Einstein combined the three dimensions of space with the one dimension of time in what we now know as Einstein’s equations.

Ever since, physicists have thought of space and time as effectively the same thing: components of four-dimensional space-time.

This might be the biggest blunder physicists have ever made.

Stephen Wolfram, on page 22 of his book A project to find the Fundamental Theory of Physics, calls it the “one ‘wrong turn’ in the history of physics in the past century”.

Space-time is dead.

Here’s w...

We’re used to thinking of space as continuous.

A stone can be anywhere in space. It can be here. Or it can be an inch to the left. Or it can be half an inch further to the left. Or it can be an infinitesimal fraction of an inch even further to the left. Space is infinitely divisible.

The graphs of Wolfram Physics, however, are discrete.

If, as Stephen Wolfram proposes, the universe is a graph, then you can’t be just anywhere in space. It makes sense to think about a node...

We humans have always been fond of invisible things.

Poltergeists, fairies, unicorns, the Yeti, the Lost City of Atlantis.

Just because you can’t see them, it doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

Scientists, no less than any other humans, suffer from this fondness for invisible things.

Phlogiston, miasma, ether, strings.

Just because you can’t see them, scientists have insisted, it doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

Beware these invisible things.

As I explore Wolfram Physics, I’m aware of certain invisible things that we...

We know what it means when we say that our universe is three-dimensional: it means that we can move in three orthogonal directions: left-right; up-down; forwards-backwards.

But what would it mean to say that a universe is 2½-dimensional?

Or 3.37-dimensional?

Or 9-dimensional?

When I measured the dimensionality one of Wolfram’s graphs, I found it to be at least 3.37-dimensional.

If Stephen Wolfram is right, then our universe might not be uniformly three-dimensional.

So maybe dimensionality isn’t quite what we think it is.<...

Are Wolfram’s graphs three-dimensional?

In Episode #009: How to measure the dimensionality of the universe – watch the video or read the article – I introduced a mathematically-minded crab, which was able to determine the dimensionality of its universe by measuring how much space it covered moving different distances in every possible direction.

Now I’m going to use the same crabby method to determine the dimensionality of graphs generated by Wolfram Physics.

I’m finally going to answer the question: how many dimensions are there in one of Wolfram’s universes?

And the answer’s...

Today’s episode includes a lot of visuals, so I recommend you watch the video or read the article rather than listen to the audio.

In Episode #007: The expanse: dimension, separation & explosion – watch the video or read the article – I argued that the graphs of Wolfram Physics are going to have to be three-dimensional to be a true representation of our universe.

But how can we tell whether these graphs are three-dimensional? Many of them are so convoluted that it’s difficult to tell whether they’re two-dimensional, three-dimensional or somewhere in between.

I’m going...

I’ve been running simulations of our universe, according to Stephen Wolfram’s computational theory of physics.

Where’s the computer that runs these simulations?

Well, it’s right here. This a low-powered laptop in my hand is literally the computer that runs these universes.

It’s natural to ask a follow-up question.

If Wolfram’s right and the real universe evolves computationally in the same way as these simulated universes, where’s the computer that runs the universe?

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here. Duration: 00:11:49

In the last episode, I introduced two fundamental characteristics of space: position and distance.

Today, I’m going to introduce three more characteristics of space: dimension, separation & explosion.

If it’s to be a viable theory of physics, Wolfram Physics has to accurately model space as we know it, including all five of these characteristics.

Let’s see how it measures up.

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Today’s episode includes a lot of visuals, so you might prefer to read the article, or watch the video, where they’re animated.

In the episo...

What is space in Wolfram Physics?

I’ve talked about the basic concepts of Wolfram Physics: nodes, edges, graphs & rules.

I just threw these concepts out there. No explanation. No rhyme, no reason. Nodes, edges, graphs & rules. Take them or leave them.

Naturally, this raised a few questions in some people’s minds.

These questions can be summed up as follows:

Wait... What? Nodes, edges, graphs & rules? Why?

This a deep question.

Let’s get into it.

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This episode includes...

I like being asked questions about Wolfram Physics.

When I try to answer them, though, I often find myself trapped in an infinite regress.

To address a question about Wolfram Physics, I might first need to address another, more fundamental question, about physics.

And to address that question, I might first need to address another, more fundamental question, than might be more philosophy than physics.

Today, I’m going to go to one of those deep questions that need to be asked, if not answered, before I can begin to address ma...

It’s all about the animations.

I’ve been coding coding coding the few weeks to develop my simulations of Wolfram Physics.

So now I’m able to explore a number of simple rules and ask a number of simple questions.

What different rules could be applied to our universe?

What different universes would arise from these rules?

Today, I explore different rules, different universes.

Today’s episode includes a lot of visuals, so you might prefer to read the article, or watch the video, where they’re fully a...

Wolfram Physics might be the most fundamental scientific breakthrough in your lifetime.

And yet you’ve probably never heard of it.

Here’s why.

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Albert Einstein’s 1905 papers

Stephen Wolfram’s project to find the fundamental theory of physics

Stephen Wolfram’s 2020 announcement

There are maybe half a million physicists in the world

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Prefer to watch the video? Watch here

The full article is here

Are you ready?

Today, I’m going to dive right into Wolfram Physics.

If you’ve never heard of Stephen Wolfram or his team’s project to find the fundamental theory of physics, don’t worry.

Think of it like this: I’m going to dive right into the fundamental structure of the universe.

And, well, you might not believe that the words “simple” and “physics” can go together, but I’m going to keep it simple.

Today’s episode includes a lot of visuals.

You can find them in the artic...

I always envy those people who, through a fantastic stroke of luck, find themselves to be exactly the right person in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to seize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I always ask myself, why can’t that happen to me?

Well, it just did.

Let me explain.

In this week’s episode, I discuss why I’m writing about Wolfram Physics.

I’ll be digging into the details, as well as taking a step back to see some of the philosophical implications, in future e...

Welcome to The Last Theory, an easy-to-follow exploration of what might be the last theory of physics.

In 2020, Stephen Wolfram launched the Wolfram Physics Project to find the elusive fundamental theory that explains everything.

On The Last Theory, I investigate the implications of Wolfram’s ideas and dig into the details of how his universe works. 

Join me for fresh insights into Wolfram Physics every other week: subscribe to the free newsletter, podcast or YouTube channel at lasttheory.com

After all, this might be the most fundamental scientific breakthrough of our...