2 ms·

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

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.

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.