Wolfram Physics Project

Utkarsh Bajaj

Hypergraph rewriting is studied through categorical frameworks to establish foundational concepts of events and causality in graph rewriting systems. Novel concepts are introduced within double-pushout rewriting in adhesive categories. An algorithm is constructed to determine causal relations between events during λ-calculus evaluation, with extensions developed for arbitrary λ-expressions.

Stephen Wolfram

It is shown that way the Wolfram Language rewrites and evaluates expressions mirrors the universe’s own evolution: both proceed through discrete events linked by causal relationships, form “spacetime-like” structures and branch into multiway histories analogous to quantum superpositions.

Jonathan Gorard

This study extends the Raychaudhuri equation to discrete spacetimes, exploring conditions under which they might exhibit geodesic incompleteness, and applies numerical simulations to predict black hole formations.

Stephen Wolfram

We’re in the midst of a major “science opportunity overload”. And to be good stewards of the ideas and their potential we’ve got to scale things up. I’ve had lots of experience over decades in making big projects happen. And now it’s time to take that experience and define a new structure to move forward the amazing science opportunity we find ourselves with. And I think that leaves us no choice: we’ve got to launch the Wolfram Institute, and now!

Stephen Wolfram

One of the many surprising (and to me, unexpected) implications of our Physics Project is its suggestion of a very deep correspondence between the foundations of physics and mathematics. We might have imagined that physics would have certain laws, and mathematics would have certain theories, and that while they might be historically related, there wouldn’t be any fundamental formal correspondence between them. 

But what our Physics Project suggests is that underneath everything we physically experience there is a single very general abstract structure—that we call the ruliad—and that our physical laws arise in an inexorable way from the particular samples we take of this structure.

Xerxes D. Arsiwalla, Jonathan Gorard, Hatem Elshatlawy

Xerxes D. Arsiwalla, Jonathan Gorard

The study explores how spatial structures in physics can emerge from pregeometric combinatorial models governed by computational rules, using higher category theory and homotopy types.

Stephen Wolfram

One might have thought it was already exciting enough for our Physics Project to be showing a path to a fundamental theory of physics and a fundamental description of how our physical universe works. But what I’ve increasingly been realizing is that actually it’s showing us something even bigger and deeper: a whole fundamentally new paradigm for making models and in general for doing theoretical science. And I fully expect that this new paradigm will give us ways to address a remarkable range of longstanding central problems in all sorts of areas of science—as well as suggesting whole new areas and new directions to pursue.

Jonathan Gorard, Manojna Namuduri, Xerxes D. Arsiwalla

Stephen Wolfram

Why does the universe exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? These are old and fundamental questions that one might think would be firmly outside the realm of science. But to my surprise I’ve recently realized that our Physics Project may shed light on them, and perhaps even show us the way to answers.

Stephen Wolfram

When we launched the Wolfram Physics Project a year ago today, I was fairly certain that—to my great surprise—we’d finally found a path to a truly fundamental theory of physics, and it was beautiful. A year later it’s looking even better. We’ve been steadily understanding more and more about the structure and implications of our models—and they continue to fit beautifully with what we already know about physics, particularly connecting with some of the most elegant existing approaches, strengthening and extending them, and involving the communities that have developed them.

Jonathan Gorard, Manojna Namuduri, Xerxes D. Arsiwalla