Jonathan Gorard: The Physicist Revolutionizing Physics With AI

SPONSORS: - Don’t sleep on [@ultrapouches]. New customers get 15% Off with code TOE at http://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad Every episode days early, ad-free, plus my essays: https://curtjaimungal.com Math has a proof checker. Can physics get one? Jonathan Gorard, an applied mathematician and the cofounder and CEO of Lanyon AI, joins to explain why AI took off in math and coding but not yet in physics. We discuss an AI finishing the formal check of a Fields Medal proof and why it scared him, why he thinks “I detected a particle” rests on 20 to 50 levels of theory, and what Alan Turing’s PhD student Robin Gandy tried to build for physics. The conversation also covers his push to make physics executable, why he thinks mysteries are artifacts of description languages, and whether there is still a place for the physicist. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.com - Twitter: https://x.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord: https://discord.gg/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00 - The Sphere Packing Shock - 05:53 - Science as Product vs Process - 11:20 - Is Science Just Hedonism? - 20:56 - Why Academics Ignored AI - 31:54 - Why Leave Princeton? - 39:56 - Turing's Student and Physics Formalization - 44:56 - Theory-Ladenness of Observation - 50:22 - Why Math Isn't Enough - 58:19 - Sapir-Whorf for AI - 01:05:49 - Filtering the Paper Deluge - 01:12:07 - Can AI Transmit Understanding? - 01:19:38 - Human-Readable AI Reasoning - 01:25:59 - Must AI Be Embodied? - 01:31:50 - Mysteries Are Description Language Artifacts - 01:41:54 - Grieving Physics - 01:49:59 - What's Left for Physicists? - 01:55:18 - The Next Description Language - 02:02:26 - Spacetime Discreteness and Beacons LINKS: - Jonathan Gorard [Wolfram Physics Project]: https://www.wolframphysics.org/pages/people/jonathan-gorard/ - Lanyon AI: https://www.lanyon.ai/ - Lanyon AI Founding Team: https://www.lanyon.ai/company/ - Shock with Confidence: Formal Proofs of Correctness for Hyperbolic PDE Solvers [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.13877 - BEACONS: Bounded-Error, Algebraically-Composable Neural Solvers for PDEs [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.14853 - General Relativistic Hydrodynamics in Discrete Spacetime [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2402.02331 - The Empirical Metamathematics of Euclid and Beyond [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2107.07337v1 - Math Inc. Sphere Packing Announcement: https://www.math.inc/sphere-packing - The Sphere Packing Problem in Dimension 8 [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1603.04246 - Progress in Formalizing Sphere Packing in Dimension 8 [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.23468 - On Axiomatic Systems in Mathematics and Theories in Physics [Paper]: https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/ohad.kammar/scans/gandy-thesis-ocr.pdf - Hilbert's Sixth Problem: Axioms of Physics [Paper]: https://people.reed.edu/~davidp/341/resources/hilbert.pdf - Hilbert's Program [SEP]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hilbert-program/ - On Computable Numbers [Paper]: https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Turing_Paper_1936.pdf - Lean Proof Assistant [Wikipedia]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_(proof_assistant) - The Lean Mathematical Library [Paper]: https://leanprover-community.github.io/papers/mathlib-paper.pdf Full reading list for this episode (all 114 sources): https://curtjaimungal.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices