About Thoughts of a TechnoGeek: This is where I'll post my thoughts, interesting articles, or anything else I want to. If you don't like it, don't read it. David L Brenner my email Subscribe Links
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Fri, 06 Feb 2004
Steven Wolfram, the guy that invented Mathematica, wrote a book that was released last year called A New Kind of Science. In line with the lofty title, he asserted that the way we look at science may be outdated and he proposed a very different way of looking at the world. People who have read his book (all 1200 pages of it) fall into one of three camps: they think he's a genius, they think he's off his rocker, or they aren't sure what to think. I am in the 3rd group with tendencies towards the first group. His assertion is that the universe is a really big fucking computer running the equivalent of the game of life. All of the things we see and our actions are the result of a cellular autonoma. The problem with this theory is that it would be impossible to prove, and he's basically saying that you can't simulate things with arbitrary precision without a computer bigger than the universe (If I understand him correctly). I read through the book, and it is a worthwhile read if you're into this kind of thing. He makes some really interesting observations about the natural world and covers a lot of topics in varying levels of detail. Some of it felt like classes that I didn't want to take ever, but a lot of the computer science stuff was awesome. The best part is, he's put the book online for free. It can be found here. I bought the book the day it came out because of the press on the book that I read before it's release. I've finished the main text and quit reading part way through the notes (which make up almost a third of the book). |