Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science

[Jeff]

I happened to find a book review in Time this morning that I can’t pass up posting here. It’s an article on Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science. Though it goes against everything I have been taught (when designing, spend 90% of your time coming up with a core concept – an idea from which everything else will spring and the details will be derived) and although it’s not as elegant of a “big picture” I can’t help but be intrigued and wonder if this isn’t the way design decisions really evolve in practice through a kind of natural selection.

How Everything Works

[duluthboats]

Jeff, are there more than one of you? How can you find the time to do all that you do here and still read and wonder about such things? Wolfram is giving the pot a good stir anyway. Never hurts to look at things differently, it sometimes makes you appreciate the view you had.

Here is a link to Wolfram’s site and some reviews of his book.

http://www.stephenwolfram.com/

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/boo...ustomerReviews

Gary

[Jeff]

Thanks for the links Gary - I also found a longer review of the book at http://nytimes.com/2002/06/09/books/...09JOHNSOT.html - (for others reading this you have to sign up for a free membership to the NYtimes site for that link to be of any use and the link directly to his site which Gary posted above is probably better).

Of course now I have to find the time to actually read the book - at 1200 pages hopefully I’ll be able to free up enough time sometime this year, but probably not until the snow is on the ground

I'm not sure if it's as earth-shaking as it first sounds not to mention whether I agree with it, but it's always nice to have a fresh perspective.

Thanks again.