I’m much more confident that there are in fact ‘enough graduate students’ working on Wolfram’s physics project after watching some videos that someone else kindly shared elsewhere in the comments on this post.
The ‘math lead’ of the project – Jonathan Gorard – has mentioned work being done by both former and current students. This video includes some of that (and is otherwise really interesting):
(Some of his current students are working on some really cool experimental tests of the Wolfram theory/model!)
My ‘model’ of the ‘current system’s resistance’ is some mix of: (a) Wolfram being a (HUGE) ‘asshole’ (or maybe ‘literally disordered’ in personality or temperament); (b) basically all of the old guard ‘sticking to’ continuous mathematics and dismissing any ‘fundamentally discrete’ alternatives out of hand.
Wolfram’s emphasis on ‘computation’ over ‘mathematics’ is probably also contributing to this somewhat, but, in the video above, it seems like younger physicists/academics might be much more receptive to this than ‘the oldguard’. Apparently some areas/branches of physics are already pretty, or heavily, ‘computational’. Fundamental (particle) physics seems like the big holdout in that sense.
I’m much more confident that there are in fact ‘enough graduate students’ working on Wolfram’s physics project after watching some videos that someone else kindly shared elsewhere in the comments on this post.
The ‘math lead’ of the project – Jonathan Gorard – has mentioned work being done by both former and current students. This video includes some of that (and is otherwise really interesting):
Eigenbros ep 138 - Wolfram Physics Project Pt. 2 (w/ Jonathan Gorard) - YouTube
(Some of his current students are working on some really cool experimental tests of the Wolfram theory/model!)
My ‘model’ of the ‘current system’s resistance’ is some mix of: (a) Wolfram being a (HUGE) ‘asshole’ (or maybe ‘literally disordered’ in personality or temperament); (b) basically all of the old guard ‘sticking to’ continuous mathematics and dismissing any ‘fundamentally discrete’ alternatives out of hand.
Wolfram’s emphasis on ‘computation’ over ‘mathematics’ is probably also contributing to this somewhat, but, in the video above, it seems like younger physicists/academics might be much more receptive to this than ‘the oldguard’. Apparently some areas/branches of physics are already pretty, or heavily, ‘computational’. Fundamental (particle) physics seems like the big holdout in that sense.