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Seems more like mathematician ego rather that Wolfram's ego. I see the same attitude in xkcd, for example. http://xkcd.com/435/ http://xkcd.com/435/ There was
by sudont 13y ago
Seems more like mathematician ego rather that Wolfram's ego. I see the same attitude in xkcd, for example.
http://xkcd.com/435/ http://xkcd.com/435/
There was also a recent article on here about how programming is a dead-end, non-prestigious job in research circles. Sounds like a continuation of that sentiment.
- scott_s 13y agoRandall Munroe is making fun of that attitude in xkcd, not supporting it. He was a physicist at NASA, but has done a decent amount of programming.
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- sudont 13y agoFair enough. I do think it does make a good example of prevailing attitudes, regardless of whether the author has them.
- sp332 13y agoReally? I always read it as an endorsement.
- scott_s 13y agoThe science "stack" is something that, I think, most people agree exists. Just as it exists in technology. But I always read the comic as making fun of the feeling of superiority in being deeper down the stack.
- maaku 13y agoNo, not everyone does. Physicists, for example, are sometimes known to maintain that math is only human models approximating underlying physical substrates, and that pure / theoretical math is an artificial construction whose validation depends on finding physical manifestation of the theory. That would put experimental physicists to the right (above?) the mathematicians. But even if you did believe the mathematicians claim, by the same logic you would philosophy above them.
- scott_s 13y agoDisagreeing on the configuration is different than disagreeing on the existence.
- maaku 13y agoOk, I interpreted it wrongly. But I still don't agree. I've worked in academia and a NASA research center and never did I observe a respected scientist making such an observation. I know that's anecdotal evidence, but I don't know what else to fallback on. I always thought that the old tired line of "X is the core science!" was a trap that only mathematicians, physicists, and ignorant grad students fell into. I wasn't aware that any respected (and respectful) scientists actually took it seriously.
- scott_s 13y agoI think perhaps you're still thinking of a value judgement. To me, it is obvious that we have different fields of science for different scales. For example, there are many aspects of physics that a biologist takes for granted or doesn't even reason about when considering biological systems. They may need to reason about, say, chemistry from first principles. But I would be surprised for many biologists to have to apply much reasoning from quantum mechanics. Again, this is not a value judgement. A similar thing exists with computers. People who write web applications depend on user-application infrastructure, who depend on systems applications, which depend on operating systems, which depends on computer architecture, which depends on materials engineering and so on. As a systems programmer, I regularly reason about operating systems and computer architecture. But I never reason about the properties of the materials that make the hardware. The computer architects, though, may have to reason about the materials, as it can provide constraints to their designs.
- mailshanx 13y agoAs a general principle, it is always good to have at least some knowledge of 2 levels of abstraction below (and above) where you work, because they tend to leak!
- josh-wrale 13y agoEmergence it is!
- jballanc 13y agoRead the image alt text...
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- awef 13y agoWould you mind linking said article?