STEPHEN WOLFRAM

'Stephen Wolfram' (born August 29, 1959 in London) is a theorist known for his work in theoretical particle physics, cellular automata, complexity theory, and computer algebra, and is the creator of the computer program Mathematica.

Contents

Early life

Professional life

Mathematica

''A New Kind of Science''

References

External links

Early life

Wolfram's father, Hugo Wolfram, was a novelist and his mother, Sybil Wolfram, was a professor of philosophy at Oxford. Wolfram was educated at Eton public school. Often described as a child prodigy, he published an article on particle physics at age 16^[1] and entered Oxford University (St John's College) at age 17. He received his Ph.D. in particle physics from Caltech at age 20^[2] and joined the faculty there. His work with Geoffrey Fox on the theory of the strong interaction is still used today in experimental particle physics.^[3]

Professional life

He led the development of the computer algebra system SMP (''Symbolic Manipulation Program'': SMP was essentially Version Zero of Mathematica) in the Caltech physics department during 1979–1981, but a dispute with the administration over the intellectual property rights regarding SMP --patents/copyrights and faculty involvement in commercial ventures -- eventually caused him to resign from Caltech.^[4] SMP was further developed and marketed commercially by Inference Corp. of Los Angeles during the period 1983–1988. In 1981, Wolfram was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. In 1983, he left for the School of Natural Sciences of the Institute for Advanced Study, where he studied cellular automata, mainly with computer simulations.

Mathematica

Main articles: Mathematica

In 1986 Wolfram left the Institute for Advanced Study for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he founded their Center for Complex Systems Research and started to develop the computer algebra system Mathematica, which was first released in 1988, when he left academia. In 1987 he co-founded a company called Wolfram Research, which continues to extend the program and market it with success. As of today Stephen Wolfram is the majority shareholder.

''A New Kind of Science''

Main articles: A New Kind of Science

From 1992 to 2002, Wolfram worked on his controversial book ''A New Kind of Science'' (NKS), which presents an empirical study of very simple computational systems. Additionally, it argued that for fundamental reasons these types of systems, rather than traditional mathematics, are needed to model and understand complexity in nature.
Since the release of the NKS book in 2002, Wolfram has split his time between developing Mathematica and encouraging people to get involved with NKS by giving talks, holding NKS conferences, and starting an NKS summer school.

References

1. Hadronic Electrons? Note that the SPIRES date of April 1975 refers to the date the preprint was received, not the date of journal publication.
2. Thesis listing: Some Topics In Theoretical High-Energy Physics
3. See A Model for Parton Showers in QCD and Observables for the Analysis of Event Shapes in e+ e- Annihilation and Other Processes
4. Kolata, Gina. "Caltech Torn by Dispute Over Software," ''Science'', 27 May 1983 (Vol. 220, No. 4600) issue, pgs. 932-934.

External links

★ Stephen Wolfram's personal website

★

★ A collection of reviews of Stephen Wolfram's book, ''A New Kind of Science''

★ The freely available full text of ''A New Kind of Science'', MIT video overview

★ Accusations of plagiarism in NKS

★ Video of Wolfram speaking at UCSD H.Paul Rockwood Memorial Lecture

★ Video of Stephen Wolfram speaking at the International Conference on Complex Systems, hosted by the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI)

★ God, Stephen Wolfram, and Everything Else - forbes.com article

★ IT Conversations: Stephen Wolfram - A New Kind of Science

★ Rudy Rucker book, ''The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul'', that presents NKS ideas