Wolfram Finally Understands and Explains Quantum Mechanics | Stephen Wolfram at The UIUC Talkshow

GUEST BIO:
Stephen Wolfram is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, the company behind the revolutionary Mathematica, Wolfram Alpha (the revolutionary computational search engine), Wolfram Language, and the new Wolfram Physics project. He is also the author of several books, including 'A New Kind of Science'.

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Our goal with this show is to introduce you to the most interesting people with the most interesting ideas from the UIUC campus.

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Juan David

[saulorocha]

In a nutshell, he meant they still don’t understand quantum mechanics.

[a.hardin]

This is nothing new. He’s just rehashing the Everettian interpretation of QM and like he does so often fails to credit precursors for their ideas and acts like he thought this up himself.

[kevyyt]

Yes, you got it! All conceivable realities actually exist and are real for “those” in that frame of reference. So we are part of “all those realities” (we are actually projecting them), and we simply collapse one of the infinite realities into our experience and call it “come to pass”. This is the essence of the Observer Effect. That’s all that QM really describes. 👍🏼

[longlivemathematics]

He said, "I really understand quantum mechanics"! He is in a superposition state of genius and stupid :D Let Einstein enter the system and collapse the wave function. "Nowadays, every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks he knows it, but he is mistaken."

[larsnystrom]

I browsed Wolframs book where he, a long time ago, tried to do something we claimed were phys8cs.
I also browsed a book Hubbard, the father of Scientology wrote on his stuff.
They were pretty much of the same quality!

It isn't just AI:s which can hallucinate!
We all do that while dreaming, but only a few of us can write like that while awake. They were awake, weren't they?

[advaitrahasya]

A physicist "understanding" a mathematical model is the same thing as a Geocentric Epicyclist "understanding" why planets go retrograde.

To have an "understanding" of phenomena viewed through a wrong paradigm is not exactly a good thing.

[alschneider]

It has been shown. that in certain circumstances there is a high probability, that is when things line up, it happens. Inconclusively!

[iyziejane]

There is no merging in the quantum many-worlds. The only way to turn two branches into one is when they are identical.

[elirane]

And still the old Feynman saying stands "if you think you understand quantum mechanics then you don't understand quantum mechanics".
That was 4 minutes of nonsense

[agungdewandaru]

He seems to be describing universe as a giant git repository..

[KeithNagel]

Wolf's a smart guy and all due respect to him, but no he doesn't understand QM. How could he even address the "knowing" subject without mentioning/addressing Bell's theorem? Knowing in a broad sense means replacing the statistical mechanics with classical mechanics. A much more fruitful path to understanding comes from following De Broglie's ideas about wave mechanics and physical interpretation of such. Google (and youtube) around on "walking drops" for some insightful experiments in that regard. Yet Bell looms large over all these considerations... it's hard to get around the guy (grin). He really earned that Nobel.

[alexbenzie]

"Branching timeliness and "branching brains". Weird claims based on absolutely zero evidence. wtf is he talking about? Lol

[Feverstockphoto]

So if you go ask your professor and they don't have anything sensible to say, can you say that you were probably barking up the wrong tree branch?

[pikiwiki]

so we're dealing with histories we don't know about but we are a part of ? Sexy, exotic

[lindor]

what is going on with the circular area on the board right behind the back of his head? xD wth is this wobblyness when his head comes close? xD

[javastream]

What? Say something and say nothing at the same time!

I lost 4 minutes of my life!

[gnagyusa]

I agree with Wolfram that the Many Worlds implementation of QM is the most sensible one.

[prtauvers]

Why do 8 billion individual brains, minds, follow the same single winding path thru his branching time Universe??

[silversurfer]

Well it turns out: He does not know more than any other individual on the planet. He just uses different words and cites Everettian hypotheses which are still considererd strange - compatible with assumptions, calculations, possible but not really something that can be understood (rather than accepted as being not refuted). What is this bragging all about? I don’t get it.

[Achrononmaster]

This is nonsense. It's got nothing to do with minds or brains. (Although I for one believe minds are important aspects of reality, but for totally different reasons). Quantum mechanics can be understood if you admit closed timelike curves into general relativity. When you do, GR is _already a quantum theory._ There is no need for branching, and no "wavefunction of the universe" except for purposes of description when you lack the ability to compute the effects of CTCs (which we do, so we do in fact need the tricks, and QFT is one such good trick.) By the way, the latter is what Feynman understood, although he did not understand GR could admit CTCs. We'd only get paradoxes if CTCs permit macroscopic objects traversals, but they do not. Only a "qubit" can traverse a Planck scale CTC (aka. ER=EPR wormhole traversal).