Stephen Wolfram

JANUARY 31, 2023

But in 1798 Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford) (1753–1814) measured the heat produced by the mechanical process of boring a cannon, and began to make the argument that, in contradiction to the caloric theory, there was actually some kind of correspondence between mechanical energy and amount of heat.

Energy 88

Energy Physics Argumentation Mathematics 88

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). Richard Feynman and I would get into very fierce arguments. But it also led him to the idea that the universe must be a giant cellular automaton—whose program he could invent. It’s just my nature.

Computer 68

Computer Physics Science Sciences 68

Stephen Wolfram

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

Sometimes textbooks will gloss over everything; sometimes they’ll give some kind of “common-sense-but-outside-of-physics argument”. 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. Why does the Second Law work?

Computer 92

Computer Energy Physics Construction 92

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 122

Physics Mathematics Computer Construction 122

Stephen Wolfram

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

Events are like functions, whose “arguments” are incoming tokens, and whose output is one or more outgoing tokens. And the same issue arose for Alonzo Church’s lambda calculus (introduced around 1930). At the level of individual events, ideas from the theory and practice of computation are useful. One is so-called Böhm trees.

Physics 65

Physics Science Sciences Mathematics 65

Stephen Wolfram

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

Events are like functions, whose “arguments” are incoming tokens, and whose output is one or more outgoing tokens. And the same issue arose for Alonzo Church’s lambda calculus (introduced around 1930). At the level of individual events, ideas from the theory and practice of computation are useful. One is so-called Böhm trees.

Science 64

Science Sciences Physics Mathematics 64