4 ms·

George Boole: A 200-Year View

41 points by julien 11y ago

delazeur 11y ago
I'm not very familiar with the history of this area, but I've heard repeatedly that Wolfram has a pattern of implicitly or explicitly taking credit for results he wasn't the first person to discover. Can anyone comment on his claim that he found "the provably very simplest axiom system for logic?"
- scholia 11y ago
  He says: over the course of the century that followed, a few progressively simpler forms of it were found and But in the context of George Boole, one can say that it’s a minimal version of his big idea Since this is an aside, he doesn't cover it in depth. However, he is clearly saying (1) that his claim is a derivative of Boole's idea, and (2) that lots of other people made simplifications before he did. This doesn't sound to me like "implicitly or explicitly taking credit for results he wasn't the first person to discover". And the last time I saw such a claim on HN, it was clearly wrong. In passing, my own favorite simplification is G Spencer Brown's Laws of Form, which has mostly been forgotten now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_Form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_Form
  - delazeur 11y ago
    He certainly put his claim in context, but my suspicion was that "I ended up finishing this 150-year process" was a bit grandiose, so I wanted to see if anyone was familiar with this work. People can definitely be quick to criticize Wolfram for pomposity, but I've seen a lot of passages from A New Kind of Science where he says "I discovered X" but means "someone else discovered X, then I confirmed it for myself."
- btilly 11y ago
  He found it through a computer search that not only proved that axiom worked, but also proved that no smaller axiom could. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_axiom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_axiom for more.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  Maybe he just wants to be seen as a member of the club, not particularly being its King.
dragandj 11y ago
TL;DR: "And then, as it happens, 16 years ago I ended up finishing this 150-year process, by finding—largely as a side effect of other science I was doing—the provably very simplest possible axiom system for logic, that actually happens to consist of just a single axiom.", says Stephen Wolfram. So, although the article is seemingly about George Boole and his work, the real hero is the always humble Stephen.
- dang 11y ago
  Please don't do this here. This reflexive criticism of everything Wolfram touches, however originally justified, has become a derangement syndrome in its own right. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10723588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10723588 The topic here is George Boole, an important and fascinating figure. We ought to be able to discuss Boole whether the OP's name is Wolfram or not, whether or not he drops asides about himself. Otherwise we just turn into the mirror image of the very quality we find annoying.
s_dev 11y ago
Theres an RTE (Irish National Broadcaster) documentary on George Boole thats very good. He was an interesting and brave figure to travel to Ireland during the Irish famine as an Englishman. He was warmly welcomed and he firmly rejected the condescending aristocratic attitudes prevalent in Victorian Britain at that time.
- tria56 11y ago
  is there a way to watch/download that documentary without using some Irish proxy?
  - s_dev 11y ago
    Yes. One could attain illegally via the torrent route the other is snail mailing RTE and asking how to get a copy. It's narrated by Jeremy Irons. You can see a trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEjzjLv-YjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEjzjLv-YjI

41 points by julien 11y ago

I'm not very familiar with the history of this area, but I've heard repeatedly that Wolfram has a pattern of implicitly or explicitly taking credit for results he wasn't the first person to discover. Can anyone comment on his claim that he found "the provably very simplest axiom system for logic?"

scholia 11y ago
He says: over the course of the century that followed, a few progressively simpler forms of it were found and But in the context of George Boole, one can say that it’s a minimal version of his big idea Since this is an aside, he doesn't cover it in depth. However, he is clearly saying (1) that his claim is a derivative of Boole's idea, and (2) that lots of other people made simplifications before he did. This doesn't sound to me like "implicitly or explicitly taking credit for results he wasn't the first person to discover". And the last time I saw such a claim on HN, it was clearly wrong. In passing, my own favorite simplification is G Spencer Brown's Laws of Form, which has mostly been forgotten now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_Form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_Form
- delazeur 11y ago
  He certainly put his claim in context, but my suspicion was that "I ended up finishing this 150-year process" was a bit grandiose, so I wanted to see if anyone was familiar with this work. People can definitely be quick to criticize Wolfram for pomposity, but I've seen a lot of passages from A New Kind of Science where he says "I discovered X" but means "someone else discovered X, then I confirmed it for myself."
btilly 11y ago
He found it through a computer search that not only proved that axiom worked, but also proved that no smaller axiom could. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_axiom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_axiom for more.
agumonkey 11y ago
Maybe he just wants to be seen as a member of the club, not particularly being its King.

dragandj 11y ago

TL;DR: "And then, as it happens, 16 years ago I ended up finishing this 150-year process, by finding—largely as a side effect of other science I was doing—the provably very simplest possible axiom system for logic, that actually happens to consist of just a single axiom.", says Stephen Wolfram. So, although the article is seemingly about George Boole and his work, the real hero is the always humble Stephen.

dang 11y ago
Please don't do this here. This reflexive criticism of everything Wolfram touches, however originally justified, has become a derangement syndrome in its own right. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10723588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10723588 The topic here is George Boole, an important and fascinating figure. We ought to be able to discuss Boole whether the OP's name is Wolfram or not, whether or not he drops asides about himself. Otherwise we just turn into the mirror image of the very quality we find annoying.

s_dev 11y ago

Theres an RTE (Irish National Broadcaster) documentary on George Boole thats very good. He was an interesting and brave figure to travel to Ireland during the Irish famine as an Englishman. He was warmly welcomed and he firmly rejected the condescending aristocratic attitudes prevalent in Victorian Britain at that time.

tria56 11y ago
is there a way to watch/download that documentary without using some Irish proxy?
- s_dev 11y ago
  Yes. One could attain illegally via the torrent route the other is snail mailing RTE and asking how to get a copy. It's narrated by Jeremy Irons. You can see a trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEjzjLv-YjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEjzjLv-YjI