Stephen Wolfram

JANUARY 31, 2023

It began partly as an empirical law, and partly as something abstractly constructed on the basis of the idea of molecules, that nobody at the time knew for sure existed. But, first and foremost, the story of the Second Law is the story of a great intellectual achievement of the mid-19th century.

Energy 88

Energy Physics Argumentation Mathematics 88

Stephen Wolfram

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

It’s yet another surprising construct that’s arisen from our Physics Project. And it’s one that I think has extremely deep implications—both in science and beyond. In some ways it’s a bit like our efforts to construct the ruliad. The whole continuum of all real numbers is “from the outside” in many ways a simple construct.

Physics 122

Physics Mathematics Computer Construction 122

Stephen Wolfram

MARCH 7, 2022

When most working mathematicians do mathematics it seems to be typical for them to reason as if the constructs they’re dealing with (whether they be numbers or sets or whatever) are “real things”. And we can think of that ultimate machine code as operating on things that are in effect just abstract constructs—very much like in mathematics.

Mathematics 120

Mathematics Physics Computer Algebra 120

Stephen Wolfram

FEBRUARY 2, 2023

One of the key things that had originally let me start “scientifically investigating” cellular automata is that out of all the infinite number of possible constructible rules, I’d picked a modest number on which I could do exhaustive experiments. Of course, as is typical in the history of ideas, there’s more to the story.

Physics 95

Physics Computer Mathematics Science 95