Here’s a masterclass from Jonathan Gorard.

One of the most compelling results to come out of the Wolfram Physics is Jonathan’s derivation of the Einstein equations from the hypergraph.

Whenever I hear anyone criticize the Wolfram model for bearing no relation to reality, I tell them this: Jonathan Gorard has proved that general relativity can be derived from the hypergraph.

In this excerpt from our conversation, Jonathan describes how making just three reasonable assumptions – causal invariance, asymptotic dimension preservation and weak ergodicity – allowed him to derive the vacuum Einstein equations from the Wolfram model.

In other words, the structure of space-time in the absence of matter more or less falls out of the hypergraph.

And making one further assumption – that particles can be treated as localized topological obstructions – allowed Jonathan to derive the non-vacuum Einstein equations from the Wolfram model.

In other words, the structure of space-time in the presence of matter, too, falls out of the hypergraph.

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of this result.

At the very least, we can say that the Wolfram model is consistent with general relativity.

To state it more strongly: we no longer need to take general relativity as a given; instead, we can derive it from Wolfram Physics.

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Jonathan’s seminal paper on how to derive general relativity

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

Jonathan Gorard

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

• The Centre for Applied Compositionality
• The Wolfram Physics Project

People mentioned by Jonathan

• Alfred Gray

Research mentioned by Jonathan

• The volume of a small geodesic ball of a Riemannian manifold by Alfred Gray
• Tubes by Alfred Gray

Concepts mentioned by Jonathan

• Hausdorff dimension
• Geodesic balls, tubes & cones
• Ricci scalar curvature
• Ricci curvature tensor
• Einstein equations
• Einstein–Hilbert action
• Relativistic Lagrangian density
• Causal graph
• Tensor rank
• Trace

From A Project to find the Fundamental Theory of Physics by Stephen Wolfram:

• Dimension
• Curvature

Images

• 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

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