Stephen Wolfram (Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha creator) has a theory of everything. This story from Wired magazine 2002 tries to follow his 10 years long quest to find out a theory of everything in a very un-orthdox way. The resulting book, modestly titled, is going to be as revolutionary as any book by any scientist so far (according to Wolfram). [Link]
As dessert is served, I bring up the secret-of-the-universe question. Wolfram's theory that there is a single rule at the heart of everything - a single simple algorithm that, in effect, generates all the rules of physics and everything else - is bound to be one of his most controversial claims, a theory that even some of his close friends in physics aren't buying.
Furthermore, Wolfram rubs our faces in the dreary implications of his contention. Not only does a single measly rule account for everything, but if one day we actually see the rule, he predicts, we'll probably find it unimpressive. "One might expect," he writes, "that in the end there would be nothing special about the rule for our universe - just as there has turned out to be nothing special about our position in the solar system or the galaxy."
I have some trouble with this.
"I've got to ask you," I say. "How long do you envision this rule of the universe to be?"
"I'm guessing it's really very short."
"Like how long?"
"I don't know. In Mathematica, for example, perhaps three, four lines of code."
"Four lines of code?"
"That's what I'm guessing. I mean, I don't really know, but I think there's no obvious evidence that it's any longer than that. Now, in a sense, it will be short if Mathematica was a well-designed language. It will be longer if it doesn't happen to be as well-designed, in the sense that that doesn't happen to be the way the universe works. But we're not looking at 25,000 lines of code or something. We're looking at a handful of lines of code."
"So it's not like Windows?"
What's new is that he claims that this universal rule is not that complex.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, according to him, the nature of complexity itself is simple.
ooooppppppssss.... I meant to add to it and i trashed it !
ReplyDelete:)
here it is again "I had some respect for wolfram but if he is claiming that this "rule for everything" is his idea - he is blowing smoke. Its as old as physics. universal formula - grand unified theory"
but he can't have any scientific basis for such a claim. without that his claim is as good as anyone else's right? does he really need a book to say that?
ReplyDeleteWhich is exactly why he is opposing the whole scientific construct. Notice the name of the book :)
ReplyDeleteHe thinks that our mathematical models are not constructed in a way that they can capture the nature of complex phenomenon exactly. which is why they will always be an approximation.
However, if we could start from "the code", we could have an exact model for everything, even "random" phenomena.
The book is available on Scribd. I would try to read it but it is thick.
I still don't know what his reasoning for saying this is - but I guess for that I will have to read his book. And like you said... its thick !
ReplyDeleteIn any case, whenever anyone invokes the powers of Math in a discussion, I tend to shut up :)
heh heh. Sorry about that. Just trying to explain what he is saying according to what I understood.
ReplyDeleteIt is just that his background is so extra ordinary that I would like to read his book before knocking him. Even though I agree that it all sounds very suspicious :)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/11371649/Stephen-Wolfram-A-New-Kind-of-Science
ReplyDelete