Stephen Wolfram

JANUARY 31, 2023

But, first and foremost, the story of the Second Law is the story of a great intellectual achievement of the mid-19th century. There’s a discussion about H for systems that interact, and how there’s an equilibrium value achieved. It’s exciting now, of course, to be able to use the latest 21st-century ideas to take another step.

Energy 89

Energy Physics Argumentation Mathematics 89

Stephen Wolfram

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

But say all we’ve got is the data, and we don’t know what underlying laws govern it. It’s not obvious that it would be feasible to find the path of the steepest descent on the “weight landscape” But calculus comes to the rescue. In this particular case, we can use known laws of physics to work it out.

Computer 145

Computer Architecture Mathematics Construction 145

Stephen Wolfram

AUGUST 22, 2023

It didn’t help that his knowledge of physics was at best spotty (and, for example, I don’t think he ever really learned calculus). But I think at least in the later part of his life, Ed felt his greatest achievements related to cellular automata and in particular his idea that the universe is a giant cellular automaton.

Computer 68

Computer Physics Science Sciences 68

Stephen Wolfram

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

But there’s really just one principle that governs all these things: that whatever method we have to prepare or analyze states of a system is somehow computationally bounded. We’ve been talking about a demon that’s trying to “achieve something fairly simple”, like maintaining a barrier or a “one-way membrane”. How do we achieve this?

Computer 93

Computer Energy Physics Construction 93

Stephen Wolfram

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

And just like the speed of light governs the maximum rate at which effects can propagate in physical space, so similarly in our models there’s a “ maximum entanglement speed ” at which effects can propagate in branchial space. But what about other models of computation—like cellular automata or register machines or lambda calculus?

Physics 123

Physics Mathematics Computer Construction 123

Stephen Wolfram

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

Part of what this achieves is to generalize beyond traditional mathematics the kind of constructs that can appear in models. To say something more global requires the whole knitting together of “economic space” achieved by all the local transactions in the network. It’s very much like in the emergence of physical space.

Science 65

Science Sciences Physics Mathematics 65

Stephen Wolfram

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

Part of what this achieves is to generalize beyond traditional mathematics the kind of constructs that can appear in models. To say something more global requires the whole knitting together of “economic space” achieved by all the local transactions in the network. It’s very much like in the emergence of physical space.

Physics 65

Physics Science Sciences Mathematics 65