Can we use programs instead of equations to make models of the world? ...[I]n the beginning of the 1980s ...I did a bunch of computer experiments. ..… - Stephen Wolfram

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Can we use programs instead of equations to make models of the world? ...[I]n the beginning of the 1980s ...I did a bunch of computer experiments. ...It took me a few years to really say, "Wow, there's a big important phenomenon here that lets... complex things arise from very simple programs." ...[A] bunch of other years go by [and] I start of doing ...more systematic computer experiments ...and find ...that ...this phenomenon ...is actually something incredibly general... [T]hat led me to this... principle of computational equivalence... [A]s part of that process I said, "OK... simple programs can make models of complicated things. What about the whole universe?" ...and so I got to thinking, "Could we use these ideas to study fundamental physics?" ...I happened to know a lot about traditional fundamental physics. ...I had a bunch of ideas about how to do this in the early 1990s. I made... technical progress. ...I wrote about them back in 2002.