I’ve heard from many of you that you’d like the whole of my conversation with Jonathan Gorard in a single podcast or video.

So here it is, the complete first interview.

These three hours are a brilliant exposition of Wolfram Physics from a figure whose contributions to the project are second to none.

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Jonathan Gorard

• Jonathan Gorard at The Wolfram Physics Project
• Jonathan Gorard on Twitter

• The Centre for Applied Compositionality
• The Wolfram Physics Project

Jonathan’s seminal papers

• Some Relativistic and Gravitational Properties of the Wolfram Model; also published in Complex Systems
• Some Quantum Mechanical Properties of the Wolfram Model

Other research mentioned by Jonathan

• SetReplace by Max Piskunov
• ZX-Calculus and Extended Hypergraph Rewriting Systems I: A Multiway Approach to Categorical Quantum Information Theory – Jonathan Gorard, Manojna Namuduri, Xerxes D. Arsiwalla
• ZX-Calculus and Extended Wolfram Model Systems II: Fast Diagrammatic Reasoning with an Application to Quantum Circuit Simplification – Jonathan Gorard, Manojna Namuduri, Xerxes D. Arsiwalla
• Plotting the evolution of a Wolfram Model in 3-dimensions by Dugan Hammock
• Temporally coherent animations of the evolution of Wolfram Models by Dugan Hammock
• Algorithmic Causal Sets and the Wolfram Model by Jonathan Gorard
• Homotopies in Multiway (Non-Deterministic) Rewriting Systems as n-Fold Categories by Xerxes D. Arsiwalla, Jonathan Gorard, Hatem Elshatlawy
• Pregeometric Spaces from Wolfram Model Rewriting Systems as Homotopy Types by Xerxes D. Arsiwalla, Jonathan Gorard
• The volume of a small geodesic ball of a Riemannian manifold by Alfred Gray
• Tubes by Alfred Gray

Stephen Wolfram’s writings

• Announcement of the Wolfram Physics Project
• A New Kind of Science
• A project to find the Fundamental Theory of Physics

Concepts mentioned by Jonathan

• (∞,1)-topos
• ∞-category
• ∞-groupoid
• Algorithmic complexity theory
• Algorithmic information theory
• Applied category theory
• Associative
• Atomism
• Automated theorem proving
• Axiomatic view of mathematics – top-down
• Bell’s inequalities
• Black hole inspiral
• Boltzmann equation
• Branchial graph
• Calabi–Yau manifold
• Category error
• Causal cone
• Causal edge density
• Causal graphs
• Causal invariance
• Causal Set Theory
• Causal structure
• CausalInvariantQ
• Causally connected
• Celestial mechanics
• Cellular automata
• Chapman-Enskog expansion
• Church-Rosser property
• Coarse-graining
• Commutative
• Complete bipartite graphs
• Complete graphs
• Compositionality
• Computational irreducibility
• Computational reducibility
• Computational universality
• Confluence
• Conformal invariance
• Congruence class
• Conjugate transpose operation
• Constructivism
• Constructivist view of mathematics – bottom-up
• Continuum mechanics
• Corpuscularianism
• Cosmic microwave background
• Cosmic neutrino background
• Cosmological inflation
• Coulomb’s law
• Current algebra
• Curvature invariant
• Curvature
• Decoupling time
• Diffeomorphism invariance
• Dimension
• Directed acyclic graph
• Discrete differential operators
• Discrete Laplacian
• Distribution function
• Domain of discourse
• Einstein field equations
• Einstein–Hilbert action
• Entanglement structure
• Equivalence class
• Ergodicity
• Euler equations
• Flatness problem
• Fluid mechanics
• Forbidden minor characterization
• Gauge theory
• General covariance
• General relativity
• Geodesic balls, tubes & cones
• Graph minor
• Grothendieck’s homotopy hypothesis
• Hamiltonian mechanics
• Hasse diagram
• Hausdorff dimension
• Heisenberg’s microscope experiment
• Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle
• Hermitian operator
• Hilbert space
• Hooke’s law
• Horizon problem
• Hubble scale
• Inflaton scalar field
• Intuitionism
• Irreducibility
• Isomorphic
• K3 surface
• Kolmogorov complexity
• Kronecker product
• Kuratowski’s theorem
• Lagrangian mechanics
• Lambda calculus
• Lambda-CDM cosmology
• Layered embedding
• Lensing effects
• LIGO – Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory
• Lorentz invariance
• Magnetic monopole problem
• Manifold
• Margolis Leviton bound
• Mathematica
• Mirror symmetry
• Molecular chaos assumption
• Molecular dynamics
• Multicomputation
• Multiway system
• Navier-Stokes equations
• Ontology
• Partial differential equations
• Partition function
• Phase space
• Planck scale
• Poincaré group
• Poincaré invariance
• Quadrupole moment
• Qualia
• Quantum entanglement
• Quantum Field Theory
• Quantum information theory
• Quantum interference
• Quantum mechanics
• Quantum tunnelling
• Quintessent scalar field
• Recombination time
• Recursively Enumerable Functions
• Regge theory
• Relativistic Lagrangian density
• Ricci curvature tensor
• Ricci scalar curvature
• Riemannian distance
• Riemannian manifold
• Robertson-Seymour Theorem
• Rulial multiway system
• Scattering amplitudes
• Schrödinger equation
• Simultaneity and simultaneity surfaces in relativity
• Solid mechanics
• Space-like separation
• Spring electrical embedding
• Spring embedding
• Standard Model
• Stress tensor
• String theory
• Strings (of characters)
• Symmetric monoidal category
• Teleology
• Tensor rank
• Time reversal
• TotalCausalInvariantQ
• Trace
• Trivalent networks (a.k.a. cubic graphs)
• Turing machines
• Undecidability
• Unitary operator
• Universal Turing machine
• Universality
• Utility graph
• Wagner’s theorem
• Wavefunction collapse
• Weyl curvature
• Wolfram Engine
• Wolfram Function Repository
• Wolfram Programming Lab
• Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory

People involved in the Wolfram Physics Project

• Xerxes D. Arsiwalla
• Tommaso Bolognesi
• Hatem Elshatlawy
• Dugan Hammock
• Manojna Namuduri
• Max Piskunov
• Charles Pooh
• Stephen Wolfram

Other people mentioned by Jonathan

• Bishop Berkeley
• L. E. J. Brouwer
• Rudolph Carnap
• Alonzo Church
• Democritus
• René Descartes
• John Duns Scotus
• Kurt Gödel
• Alfred Gray
• Alan Guth
• David Hilbert
• Andrei Linde
• John Locke
• John von Neumann
• Isaac Newton
• Roger Penrose
• Abdus Salam
• Rafael Sorkin
• Alan Turing
• Stanislaw Ulam

Images

• Calabi–Yau manifold by Andrew J. Hanson, Indiana University, who allows use with attribution
• Feynman diagram by Joel Holdsworth, public domain
• John von Neumann – Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Stanisław Ulam – Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Wolf-Rayet nebula – Nebula surrounding the Wolf-Rayet star WR124 in the constellation Sagittarius. (Produced with the Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2, Hubble Space Telescope.) – NASA – NSSDCA Photo Gallery – Yves Grosdidier (University of Montreal and Observatoire de Strasbourg), Anthony Moffat (Universitie de Montreal), Gilles Joncas (Universite Laval), Agnes Acker (Observatoire de Strasbourg) – Public domain
• Stele from Retortillo by Emilio Gómez Fernández licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
• Spinning and chargend black hole with accretion disk by Simon Tyran, Vienna (Симон Тыран) licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
• Альфред Грэй в Греции by AlionaKo licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
• Crab Nebula, as seen by Herschel and Hubble – courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech – credit: ESA/Herschel/PACS/MESS Key Programme Supernova Remnant Team; NASA, ESA and Allison Loll/Jeff Hester (Arizona State University) – reproduced under JPL Image Use Policy

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery, founder of Open Web Mind