5 ms·

I think it's a good thing to have a small percentage of scientists working on whacky theories, one of them might turn out to be true.

ALittleLight 5y ago
Plus it's not like Wolfram is taking resources away from other scientists as he is funded from his company. If Wolfram wasn't doing this he'd be CEO'ing his company, there's no cost to the public for Wolfram exploring this and potentially huge gains - though unlikely.
- a_bonobo 5y ago
  There could be an opportunity costs, researchers working on this could be working on a different problem. Unlikely, but not impossible.
  - taylorius 5y ago
    I'm fairly sure Wolfram's researchers are working on it because they are interested, and want to do it.
- abdullahkhalids 5y ago
  Money is not the only resource. Scientist time is another resource, and probably a lot more important when it comes to Physics. Any private venture such as this necessarily (a) takes up scientist time, (b) provides training to scientists that can be applied to other problems later on, (c) as a second order effect, molds the public's perception of science in a certain way. (a), (b) or (c) could individually be positive or negative to society. And their net could be positive or negative. I don't know what these values are for Wolfram's work, but we can definitely make this sort of nuanced analysis.
  - nlitened 5y ago
    There’s no such thing as a limited supply of scientists, whose precious time is to be carefully allocated. For all I know, Wolfram might be creating new scientists from people who otherwise might not choose to pursue corrupt academia route.
- AlotOfReading 5y ago
  He is taking resources by not properly attributing work, actually. One of the big criticisms of NKS was the lack of a real bibliography and there was the whole Wolfram v. Cook debacle on top. As I recall, the book still doesn't credit cook for the proof.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  That was true about the Wolfram Physics Project. But now, the Wolfram Institute will compete for research funding, as he explains in the blog post. In fact, this is the whole point of creating the Institute: WPP couldn't scale up as it was eating too much of his own money, and he believes he needs to scale this up to actually bring the work to fruition. > So far we’ve basically been incubating the Wolfram Institute within our existing organization, with me effectively footing the bill. But as we launch the full Wolfram Institute we need a larger scale of support, and we’re counting on having a network of people and organizations to provide that.
vmception 5y ago
mRNA reporting for duty
- dudeinjapan 5y ago
  Kirov reporting
privatdozent 5y ago
Scientists, yes.
aj7 5y ago
Note that at various times, Feynman and Ed Fredkin became enchanted with cellular automata. We’ve had some significant tries apart from Wolfram.
aj7 5y ago
We should also note when high credibility scientists work on something for a while and then drop it altogether.

ALittleLight 5y ago

Plus it's not like Wolfram is taking resources away from other scientists as he is funded from his company. If Wolfram wasn't doing this he'd be CEO'ing his company, there's no cost to the public for Wolfram exploring this and potentially huge gains - though unlikely.

a_bonobo 5y ago
There could be an opportunity costs, researchers working on this could be working on a different problem. Unlikely, but not impossible.
- taylorius 5y ago
  I'm fairly sure Wolfram's researchers are working on it because they are interested, and want to do it.
abdullahkhalids 5y ago
Money is not the only resource. Scientist time is another resource, and probably a lot more important when it comes to Physics. Any private venture such as this necessarily (a) takes up scientist time, (b) provides training to scientists that can be applied to other problems later on, (c) as a second order effect, molds the public's perception of science in a certain way. (a), (b) or (c) could individually be positive or negative to society. And their net could be positive or negative. I don't know what these values are for Wolfram's work, but we can definitely make this sort of nuanced analysis.
- nlitened 5y ago
  There’s no such thing as a limited supply of scientists, whose precious time is to be carefully allocated. For all I know, Wolfram might be creating new scientists from people who otherwise might not choose to pursue corrupt academia route.
AlotOfReading 5y ago
He is taking resources by not properly attributing work, actually. One of the big criticisms of NKS was the lack of a real bibliography and there was the whole Wolfram v. Cook debacle on top. As I recall, the book still doesn't credit cook for the proof.
tsimionescu 5y ago
That was true about the Wolfram Physics Project. But now, the Wolfram Institute will compete for research funding, as he explains in the blog post. In fact, this is the whole point of creating the Institute: WPP couldn't scale up as it was eating too much of his own money, and he believes he needs to scale this up to actually bring the work to fruition. > So far we’ve basically been incubating the Wolfram Institute within our existing organization, with me effectively footing the bill. But as we launch the full Wolfram Institute we need a larger scale of support, and we’re counting on having a network of people and organizations to provide that.

vmception 5y ago

mRNA reporting for duty

dudeinjapan 5y ago
Kirov reporting

privatdozent 5y ago

Scientists, yes.

aj7 5y ago

Note that at various times, Feynman and Ed Fredkin became enchanted with cellular automata. We’ve had some significant tries apart from Wolfram.

aj7 5y ago

We should also note when high credibility scientists work on something for a while and then drop it altogether.