#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