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Some of the stuff Wolfram worked on was neat, but I really don't care for the self-aggrandizing tone of everything he writes. He comes off as having a nasty sup
by fragsworth 15y ago
Some of the stuff Wolfram worked on was neat, but I really don't care for the self-aggrandizing tone of everything he writes. He comes off as having a nasty superiority complex.
- Ixiaus 15y agoCan't really knock him for it though. His accomplishments are inspiring.
- lkozma 15y agoCan someone objectively describe Wolfram's main scientific accomplishments?
- nicktrav 15y agoA PhD in particle physics from Caltech ... at age 20?
- Create 15y agoA phd in particle physics (even from caltech) can be as meaningless as journalism from yale/harvard. Entire careers have been based on strings ...which is famously not even wrong. As in every profession, there are lots of "artists". Some also have substance though: ie. Feynman was like Dali: some neat stuff (teaching) and some less neat1, to still make a living. 1 ,,Please send my notes back'' -- Stückelberg (not the painter), as his worst enemy used to joke (back) to him
- omaranto 15y agoI disagree: you definitely have to be able to understand lots of complicated stuff to get a PhD in astrophysics from a place like Caltech. And even if string theory isn't physics (i.e., doesn't make testable predictions) it still is a kind of math or at least inspires a lot of math.
- helwr 15y agohttp://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=mathematica http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=mathematica http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=S+Wolfram+and+automata http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=S+Wolfram+and+...
- asciilifeform 15y agoBoth stolen: http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/ http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/ Stolen, in that he claims the lion's share of the credit, while having contributed very little. Did you know that he sued a subordinate to prevent the publication of a theorem that "was rightfully his" ?
- alexitosrv 15y agoWow, what a jerk if that's true. Do you have any reference?
- asciilifeform 15y ago1) The link above 2) Some discussion: http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=399736&tstart=0 http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=399736&ts... 3) the case, on public record: http://web.archive.org/web/20030822002640/http://www.courthousenews.com/cda/X-11/newcom11.html http://web.archive.org/web/20030822002640/http://www.courtho... ---- Wolfram Research Inc. v. Matthew Cook 8/31 CV00-9357 CBM Notice of joint stipulation and join stipulation re plaintiff Wolfram Research Inc.’s motion to compel the production of documents from California Institute of Technology. ----
- malarious 15y agoEven Mathematica was based largely on Macsyma.
- Create 15y ago...not to mention macsyma
- cool-RR 15y agoHey, this is the most egoless post that I've ever seen Wolfram make. Give him a break.
- forgottenpaswrd 15y agoAgreed, this is less than 1 WELS(). ()one to ten Wolfram Egocentricity Lineal Scale.
- pavlov 15y agoSteve Jobs also uses words like "revolutionary" and "magical" when talking about his own work. Why can't Stephen Wolfram get a pass? Personally I appreciate that Stephen Wolfram tries to talk about his work in a larger context and using terms that even a layperson can understand, rather than hiding behind specialist jargon and the false modesty of a traditional expert persona. He may not be right about computational program-space mining becoming a trillion-dollar industry, but he's brave enough to frame his long-term enthusiasm in these terms. What's the worst that can happen? If it eventually turned out that he was right, he'd certainly be remembered. If he's wrong, no big deal -- it doesn't take anything away from his accomplishments as a programmer and CEO.
- Iv 15y agoSteve Jobs doesn't have a pass either and is annoying as hell.
- F_J_H 15y agoAgreed. I remember hearing a quote when his search engine, WolframAlpha, came out: "I wonder which will become self aware first. WolframAlpha or Wolfram, Stephen".