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Some researchers dream of solving all mysteries with a common method—but a mathematical paradox may keep such solutions out of reach

What did you dream of doing when you were 16 years old? I wanted to drive a car and travel the world. But American mathematician Ray Solomonoff had more ambitious goals at that age. He wanted to find a method to solve every conceivable scientific problem.

This was not just wishful thinking—the teenager had a groundbreaking idea that would establish a completely new field of research. Over the next few years, Solomonoff developed a concept that made it possible to systematically search data for patterns—and thus reveal the hidden processes that underlie our world.

Solomonoff was looking for a rule that would select the simplest of all possible descriptions. Such a rule could be translated into a computer program. Any data could be passed to this program, and after a certain amount of time, the simplest explanation for the origin of these values could be obtained. It would be a veritable miracle machine.

How to Define “Simple”

First things first: Solomonoff’s simplest-description finder does not exist—and it never will. Nevertheless, with his ideas, the then 16-year-old stood at the precipice of a completely new field of research that deals with the true nature of chance and complexity. And as is so often the case in the natural sciences, two other people had quite similar ideas at about the same time.