Still not done reading, but in this representation, particles are stable shapes in the successive steps of the hypergraph (e.g. like gliders and other stable shapes in Game of Life).
I don't know anything about Wolfram's theory, but if it were me to create a graph theoretical foundation for Physics then nodes would be events, and maybe edges would be particles. Very Feynman-graph-like.
Re:The Wolfram Physics Project
by MengerSponge on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @11:28AM
(#22867157)
Yep. A whole lot of this is "Automata are relevant! I'm relevant!" and some hand-waving and "Doesn't this loooook like a mesh? See! We made space-time!"
Save your time, just read More is Different: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/177/4047/393
Re:The Wolfram Physics Project
by jonathan_gorard on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @01:40PM
(#22868943)
With respect, I don't think that our derivation of the conformal structure of spacetime, or of the Einstein field equations in the continuum limit of infinite causal graphs, is "hand-waving". See, for instance:
https://www.wolframcloud.com/obj/wolframphysics/Documents/so...
But a graph has nodes and edges. Nodes, in this case, can be particles.. I guess? But what are the edges? When a "simple rule" is applied to a collection of particles, what is the force that connects them after the interaction? I read some of the material in detail and skimmed some of the rest, but there was a lot of setup and cool graph visualizations and not a lot speaking to this core question.
Disclaimer: I'm not a theoretical physicist but I have read "Quantum Physics for Babies" at least 50 times.