#124 – Stephen Wolfram: Fundamental Theory of Physics, Life, and the Universe

Stephen Wolfram is a computer scientist, mathematician, and theoretical physicist. This is our second conversation on the podcast.

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Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:
00:00 – Introduction
07:14 – Key moments in history of physics
12:43 – Philosophy of science
14:37 – Science and computational reducibility
22:08 – Predicting the pandemic
38:58 – Sunburn moment with Wolfram Alpha
39:46 – Computational irreducibility
46:45 – Theory of everything
52:41 – General relativity
1:01:16 – Quantum mechanics
1:06:46 – Unifying the laws of physics
1:12:01 – Wolfram Physics Project
1:29:53 – Emergence of time
1:34:11 – Causal invariance
1:53:03 – Deriving physics from simple rules on hypergraphs
2:07:24 – Einstein equations
2:13:04 – Simulating the physics of the universe
2:17:28 – Hardware specs of the simulation
2:24:37 – Quantum mechanics in Wolfram physics model
2:42:46 – Double-slit experiment
2:45:13 – Quantum computers
2:53:21 – Getting started with Wolfram physics project
3:14:46 – The rules that created our universe
3:24:22 – Alien intelligences
3:32:29 – Meta-mathematics
3:37:58 – Why is math hard?
3:52:55 – Sabine Hossenfelder and how beauty leads physics astray
4:01:07 – Eric Weinstein and Geometric Unity
4:06:17 – Travel faster than speed of light
4:16:59 – Why does the universe exist at all