4 ms·

I bought it when it came out, and read it (mostly) cover to cover. I remember it as an interesting exploration into cellular automata, and how complex behavior

I bought it when it came out, and read it (mostly) cover to cover. I remember it as an interesting exploration into cellular automata, and how complex behavior can arise from simple rules. I think a lot of the hate came because of the title. Disclaimer: I'm neither a scientist, nor a mathematician.

edbaskerville 9y ago
Basically, the hate arose because the book (not just its title) implied that Wolfram was newly inventing a bunch of ideas that had been invented mostly by other people over the prior several decades. His revolutionary idea, that "complex behavior can arise from simple rules", wasn't his and, even if the news still hasn't yet reached many people, hadn't been revolutionary for decades. Gary William Flake's "The Computational Beauty of Nature" is an accessible alternative with interesting ideas, pretty pictures, and no hyperbole: https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/cbnhtml/index.html https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/...
- steverb 9y ago
  I haven't looked at it past the one reading, so I may have edited my memory of Wolfram's bombast. I do remember it at times reading like a sales pitch for Mathematica though. :-)
- cr0sh 9y ago
  Wolfram noted, seemingly ad-nauseum (it felt like every other page - more often than the Mathematica plug) - how the ideas he was presenting weren't original. The sheer quantity of referenced footnotes in the back of the book, scattered all over the text, bears that out as well. Seriously - it was one thing that stood out when I read it, because I was always flipping to the back trying to read the footnotes, it became apparent that to do so was going to make reading the book take several times longer for me (I don't have that many years to dedicate to reading a book).
- qubex 9y ago
  The Computational Beauty of Nature (as I have remarked ad nauseam elsewhere) is my all-time favourite book and reading it proved to be a pivotal watershed event in my life (back in 1998 when I was in high school). I'm glad I'm not the only person to constantly recommend it!
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edbaskerville 9y ago

Basically, the hate arose because the book (not just its title) implied that Wolfram was newly inventing a bunch of ideas that had been invented mostly by other people over the prior several decades. His revolutionary idea, that "complex behavior can arise from simple rules", wasn't his and, even if the news still hasn't yet reached many people, hadn't been revolutionary for decades. Gary William Flake's "The Computational Beauty of Nature" is an accessible alternative with interesting ideas, pretty pictures, and no hyperbole: https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/cbnhtml/index.html https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/...

steverb 9y ago
I haven't looked at it past the one reading, so I may have edited my memory of Wolfram's bombast. I do remember it at times reading like a sales pitch for Mathematica though. :-)
cr0sh 9y ago
Wolfram noted, seemingly ad-nauseum (it felt like every other page - more often than the Mathematica plug) - how the ideas he was presenting weren't original. The sheer quantity of referenced footnotes in the back of the book, scattered all over the text, bears that out as well. Seriously - it was one thing that stood out when I read it, because I was always flipping to the back trying to read the footnotes, it became apparent that to do so was going to make reading the book take several times longer for me (I don't have that many years to dedicate to reading a book).
qubex 9y ago
The Computational Beauty of Nature (as I have remarked ad nauseam elsewhere) is my all-time favourite book and reading it proved to be a pivotal watershed event in my life (back in 1998 when I was in high school). I'm glad I'm not the only person to constantly recommend it!

deleted 9y ago

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