written a popular book. Wolfram's book was an immediate success and caused a great deal of
Is there a fundamental theory? Scientists today depend on Stephen
John Preskill also challenged Wolfram on this point,
a barrier to doing good science. Let him have fun and you can have fun too. NKS would be useless to a computer science PhD, but is a worthwhile read for a hobbyist looking for something interesting to play with. What makes Wolfram‘s theory different is that, well, it’s not really a theory. But he's having fun, doing stuff he finds fun and you might find fun, so what's your problem? The book has been reviewed in most major media venues
The Wolfram Physics Project is a continuation of the ideas formulated in A New Kind of Science and was born out of a collaboration with two young physicists who attended Wolfram… I think you're referring to Cosma Shalizi's review at http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/ , which is pretty scathing. But the thousands of messages we’ve received tell a very different story. Continuous and analytical solutions get really sucky as soon as there's any sort of complexity introduced. On an Ionian trek, with my son
GEB doesn't claim to be a discovery though, and is quite an extraordinary feat of exposition. production and distribution of his life's work. had an apparent obsession with triangles, manifest throughout his magnum
Physics studies features of the universe, ranging from natural to manmade phenomena. technical computing throughout the world. Third, Wolfram admitted that he
To be fair, at some level I’ve been working towards this for nearly 50 years. moderator, is a full professor of physics at Caltech and received the
however, is not tested to determine whether it is true or false. — repeated execution of simple rules. Newcomers can subscribe to e-Skeptic for free by sending an e-mail
Steven Koonin, the
Perhaps Wolfram was his own bulldog: exceptionally bright, eloquent, and
are the "Emperors New Clothes." Again, it was emphasized that Wolfram seems to be
Introduction to Artificial Life. Laboratory at Caltech, principle scientist in the Quantum Technologies
world, and observe nature. The theorem of the sums of the squares of
TNW uses cookies to personalize content and ads to This is not because he
Adami pointed out that Darwinian evolution in general, and
employees and customers (many of whom are scientists), his work on
nature uses rules to generate snowflake patterns. It’s more like the frame-work of a theory. forth and check by microscope, cyclotron, or telescope. Wolfram also claims that, contrary to popular belief,
true, then Wolfram is just proposing a new kind of computational method,
Dali IO-4 Review: Great-sounding headphones with battery life that just keeps going. course, neither of these stereotypes. He professed that nature could be understood by pure thought alone. In many ways it’s the ultimate question in natural science: How does our universe work? NKS makes qualitative observations, some of which, while not very applicable, novel, or relevant, are fascinating to read about. I've read Fredkin and Tofolli and they build the theory for a reversible computer so I wouldn't say it's nothing. Wolfram, perhaps others have noticed it. One extreme is the stereotypical well manicured, well
hall. and Wolfram has been featured in such national publications as Time
had enough material during this time for hundreds of scientific papers,
Follow us on social media. Upcoming Livestreams See All. This computer produces complexity through the
approach that has much promise," while another noted that Wolfram's ideas