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Q&A with Stephen Wolfram
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class="questions"> <header id="header"> <div class="inner"> <button class="hamburger">≡</button> <h1 id="logo"> <a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com">Stephen Wolfram <svg viewBox="6.252 51.944 1031.673 96.468"> <g id="logoSVG"> <path d="M643.657,60.162c1.429-0.357,2.501-0.714,3.572-0.714h0.536V53.91h-34.121v5.538h0.536 c4.287,0.357,7.503,1.072,9.468,1.965c1.787,0.894,2.68,1.965,2.68,3.216c0,1.072-0.179,2.322-0.357,3.751 s-0.893,4.288-1.965,8.218c-1.429,5.716-3.395,12.505-5.538,20.544c-2.144,7.682-4.645,16.436-7.503,26.439L588.456,55.16h-6.968 l-22.33,66.812c-4.823-16.971-8.218-29.297-10.719-37.693c-2.501-8.575-4.287-15.006-5.181-18.758c0-0.357-0.179-1.072-0.357-1.786 c-0.179-0.715-0.179-1.251-0.179-1.608c0-1.072,1.607-1.608,3.037-1.965c2.322-0.536,5.002-0.714,8.218-0.893h0.536V53.91h-38.23 v5.538h0.536c1.071,0,2.322,0.357,3.751,0.714c1.43,0.357,2.502,0.894,3.573,1.608c1.251,0.893,2.144,1.787,2.858,2.68 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c-1.511-7.717-3.043-15.699-4.41-23.561l-0.122-0.694c-0.672-3.749-1.334-7.618-0.672-11.29l1.422-0.85 c1.715-0.924,3.322-2.033,4.796-3.307c3.513-3.107,6.731-6.533,9.614-10.232c1.267-1.897,2.209-3.991,2.79-6.196 c0.297-0.893,0.562-1.731,0.882-2.547C674.238,77.376,677.832,67.145,677.094,55.876z M665.771,69.735l-1.411,3.914 c-1.532,4.245-3.109,8.644-4.752,12.922c-1.693,4.485-4.831,8.278-8.92,10.783c-0.011-0.118-0.011-0.235,0-0.353 c0.232-11.874,1.896-21.125,5.271-29.107c2.58-6.031,6.186-10.287,11.025-12.977c0.471,0.565,0.693,1.297,0.617,2.028 C667.788,61.286,667.168,65.623,665.771,69.735z" /> </g> </svg> </a> <nav id="nav"> <ul> <li> <ul class="links"> <li class="about"><a href="//www.stephenwolfram.com/about/">ABOUT</a></li> <li class="blog"><a href="//writings.stephenwolfram.com">WRITINGS</a></li> <li class="publications"><a href="//www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/">PUBLICATIONS</a></li> <li class="media"><a href="//www.stephenwolfram.com/media/">MEDIA</a></li> <li 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$('.hamburger').click(function(e){ e.stopPropagation(); $('.links').toggleClass('show'); $('#header > .inner').toggleClass('open'); if($('.overlay').length < 1 && !$('.links').hasClass('hide')) { $('#header').append('<div class="overlay">'); } else { $('.overlay').remove(); } }); $('body').click(function(){ $('.links').removeClass('show'); $('.overlay').remove(); $('#header > .inner').removeClass('open'); }); </script> <main class="main"> <header class="main-header"> <div class="inner"> <div class="medium-col-width"> <h1 class="heading"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions">Stephen Wolfram Q&A</a></h1> <a href="/questions/submit-a-question" class="button float-r submit-a-question"> <svg width="23.812px" height="19px" viewBox="0 0 23.812 19"> <g> <path fill="#fff" d="M23.812,5.812L19.062,5.812L19.062,10.312L23.812,5.812Z" /> <path fill="#fff" d="M19.591,2.654C19.591,1.189 18.402,0 16.937,0L2.654,0C1.189,0 0,1.189 0,2.654L0,14.596C0,16.061 1.189,17.25 2.654,17.25L16.937,17.25C18.402,17.25 19.591,16.061 19.591,14.596L19.591,2.654Z" /> </g> <rect x="2.906" y="4.031" fill="#F37929" width="13.938" height="1.938"/> <rect x="2.906" y="7.875" fill="#F37929" width="13.938" height="1.938"/> <rect x="2.906" y="11.281" fill="#F37929" width="6.764" height="1.938"/> </svg> Submit a question </a> <p class="tagline">Some collected questions and answers by Stephen Wolfram</p> <div class='tagbuttons'> <a class="tag" data-tag="all" href="?c=all">All</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="advice" href="?c=advice">Advice</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="artificial-intelligence" href="?c=artificial-intelligence">Artificial Intelligence</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="business" href="?c=business">Business</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="current-events" href="?c=current-events">Current Events</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="education" href="?c=education">Education</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="future-perspectives" href="?c=future-perspectives">Future Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="historical-perspectives" href="?c=historical-perspectives">Historical Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="just-curious" href="?c=just-curious">Just Curious...</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="mathematics" href="?c=mathematics">Mathematics</a> <a class="tag on" data-tag="people" href="?c=people">People</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="personal-history" href="?c=personal-history">Personal History</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="personal-productivity" href="?c=personal-productivity">Personal Productivity</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="science" href="?c=science">Science</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="software-technology" href="?c=software-technology">Software Technology</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="wolfram-language" href="?c=wolfram-language">Wolfram Language</a> </div> <p><em>Questions may be edited for brevity; see links for full questions.</em></p> </div> </div> </header> <section> <div class="inner"> <div><h1 id="category">People</h1><span id="count">(11)</span></div> <div id="posts" class="grid heirs-width-1-2 heirs-width-full__600"> <div class="project historical-perspectives people" data-position="normal" data-date="2012-05-14 15:11:13"> <p class="date">May 14, 2012</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/tmutz/stephen_wolfram_nks_10th_anniversary/c4nyxfo/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2012/05/14/what-other-scientists-or-researchers-past-and-present-do-you-admire-most/">What other scientists or researchers, past and present, do you admire most?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Well, one might think this was a very subjective question&#8230; but perhaps there&#8217;s a way to answer it, at least in part, by pure data mining&#8230;</p> <p>Let&#8217;s look at the list of people referenced in the NKS book: <a href='https://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/index/names/'>https://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/index/names/</a></p> <p>Now just count the mentions (with Mathematica of course)&#8230; and here are the winners: Alan Turing (19); Emil Post (14); John von Neumann (12); Gottfried Leibniz (12); Isaac Newton (11); Marvin Minsky (10); David Hilbert (10); Kurt Godel (10); Aristotle (10); Benoit Mandelbrot (9); Carl Friedrich Gauss (9); Leonhard Euler (9); Euclid (9); Georg Cantor (9); Claude Shannon (8); John Conway (8); James Clerk Maxwell (7); Johannes Kepler (7); Albert Einstein (7); Rene Descartes (7);&#8230;</p> <p>Some of this I&#8217;m not surprised by; some is pretty surprising. I think Emil Post does so well because of a bunch of technical results that I used.</p> <p>I&#8217;m not surprised Alan Turing &#8220;wins&#8221;; the things I&#8217;ve done seem remarkably aligned with his interests, e.g. <a href='http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2010/06/23/happy-birthday-alan-turing/'>http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2010/06/23/happy-birthday-alan-turing/</a></p> <p>There are, I suppose, two main dimensions in terms of deciding who one might admire: first, what they did and how they thought, and second, how they lived their lives. There&#8217;s also a different standard for people one&#8217;s personally known, as opposed to historical figures.</p> <p>Among historical people, I think I&#8217;ve been most impressed by the work and thought of Turing, Leibniz, Newton, Godel, Einstein, Euclid, Darwin (and maybe others I&#8217;m now forgetting). Though I wouldn&#8217;t emulate many of the ways these people lived their lives&#8230;</p> <p>Of famous people I&#8217;ve personally known, I&#8217;ve probably been most impressed by Richard Feynman and Steve Jobs.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Well, one might think this was a very subjective question&#8230; but perhaps there&#8217;s a way to answer it, at least in part, by pure data mining&#8230; Let&#8217;s look at the list of people referenced in the NKS book: <a href='https://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/index/names/'>https://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/index/names/</a> Now just count the mentions (with Mathematica of course)&#8230; and here are the winners: Alan Turing (19); <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Well, one might think this was a very subjective question… but perhaps there’s a way to answer it, at least in part, by pure data mining… Let’s look at the list of people referenced in the NKS book: <a href='https://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/index/names/'>https://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/index/names/</a> Now just count the mentions (with Mathematica of course)… and here are the winners: Alan Turing (19); <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="historical-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=historical-perspectives">Historical Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="people" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=people">People</a> </div> </div> <div class="project people" data-position="normal" data-date="2016-02-23 20:35:00"> <p class="date">February 23, 2016</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/478njk/im_stephen_wolframask_me_anything/d0b25r4/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2016/02/23/what-was-it-like-working-with-richard-feynman/">What was it like working with Richard Feynman?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Richard Feynman and I had rather different styles of solving problems &#8230; so there was often a certain amount of &#8220;I don&#8217;t understand what you&#8217;re talking about&#8221; on both sides. We worked on quantum computing back around 1982 or so. He did hand calculation which I could never believe got the right answer, and I did computer calculations which he could never believe got the right answer&#8230; (In retrospect, I think we actually both got the right answers.) <a href="http://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/short-talk-about-richard-feynman/" target="_blank">More here »</a></p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Richard Feynman and I had rather different styles of solving problems &#8230; so there was often a certain amount of &#8220;I don&#8217;t understand what you&#8217;re talking about&#8221; on both sides. We worked on quantum computing back around 1982 or so. He did hand calculation which I could never believe got the right answer, <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Richard Feynman and I had rather different styles of solving problems … so there was often a certain amount of “I don’t understand what you’re talking about” on both sides. We worked on quantum computing back around 1982 or so. He did hand calculation which I could never believe got the right answer, <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="people" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=people">People</a> </div> </div> <div class="project people" data-position="normal" data-date="2016-02-23 20:57:26"> <p class="date">February 23, 2016</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/478njk/im_stephen_wolframask_me_anything/d0b2g82/'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2016/02/23/what-are-your-thoughts-on-elon-musk/">What are your thoughts on Elon Musk?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>He&#8217;s always fun to talk to &#8230; and we&#8217;ve been having some interesting exchanges about AI of late. I have to relate one amusing story, though. A few years ago I was at a dinner party with my oldest son (who was then about 15), and my son happened to be sitting away from me but near Elon. Apparently my son figured out &#8220;who Elon was&#8221; when he mentioned that he&#8217;d recently got a contract to blow up asteroids&#8230; Elon apparently went on to say that the only reason he went to college was &#8220;to pick up girls&#8221;. My son quoted this as &#8220;the Elon Musk theory of college&#8221; for quite a while thereafter.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="He&#8217;s always fun to talk to &#8230; and we&#8217;ve been having some interesting exchanges about AI of late. I have to relate one amusing story, though. A few years ago I was at a dinner party with my oldest son (who was then about 15), and my son happened to be sitting away from me but near Elon. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> He’s always fun to talk to … and we’ve been having some interesting exchanges about AI of late. I have to relate one amusing story, though. A few years ago I was at a dinner party with my oldest son (who was then about 15), and my son happened to be sitting away from me but near Elon. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="people" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=people">People</a> </div> </div> <div class="project historical-perspectives people" data-position="normal" data-date="2016-07-20 14:34:45"> <p class="date">July 20, 2016</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4tspts/im_stephen_wolframask_me_anything/d5jzqyy/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2016/07/20/if-turing-had-died-before-publishing-his-seminal-turing-machine-paper-in-the-1930s-how-much-would-this-have-delayed-the-construction-of-digital-computers/">If Turing had died before publishing his seminal Turing machine paper in the 1930s, how much would this have delayed the construction of digital computers?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Interesting question. The idea of universal computation actually arose at about the same time in three places: Gödel&#8217;s &#8220;general recursive functions&#8221;, Turing&#8217;s &#8220;Turing machines&#8221;, and Church&#8217;s &#8220;lambda calculus&#8221;. It turned out that all these formulations are equivalent, and that was actually known pretty quickly. But Turing&#8217;s one is much easier to understand, and really was the only one that made the point of &#8220;universal computers&#8221; at all clear.</p> <p>Having said that, Turing&#8217;s work was definitely not understood as being anything earth shattering when it was done. After all, there&#8217;d been other &#8220;universal&#8221; representations suggested before, notably primitive recursive functions, which had turned out actually not to be as universal as people thought. Nobody really knew what kinds of things one might be trying to represent (mathematical functions, physics, minds, &#8230;?) And it actually wasn&#8217;t until the 1980s or so (perhaps even with some impetus from my own work) that the real &#8220;universality&#8221; of Turing universal machines began to be widely accepted. (Of course, we still don&#8217;t ultimately know if the universe can be represented by a Turing machine computation; it could be [though I don&#8217;t think so] that it has extra things going on.)</p> <p>But back to digital computers. There&#8217;d been a long tradition of calculators, first mechanical, then electrical. And people started thinking in a rather engineering way about how to set calculators up better. And that&#8217;s really where the first computers (Atanasoff, ENIAC, etc.) came from.</p> <p>But there was another thread. Back in 1943 Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts had written a paper about their model of neural networks. And to &#8220;prove&#8221; that their neural networks were powerful enough to do everything brains can do, they appealed to Turing machines, showing that their networks could reproduce everything a universal Turing machine can do. John von Neumann was interested in modeling how the brain works, and he was enamored of McCulloch and Pitts&#8217; work. And then he connected Turing machines with the digital computers that were starting to exist, and for which von Neumann was a consultant. (von Neumann hadn&#8217;t taken Turing machines seriously before; he actually wrote a recommendation letter for Turing back in the 1930s, ignoring Turing&#8217;s Turing machine paper, and saying that Turing had done good work on the Central Limit Theorem in statistics&#8230;)</p> <p>It was quite relevant for the early development of computer science as a field that von Neumann connected Turing machines to practical computers. But I don&#8217;t think digital computers required it. I might mention that Turing himself in the 1950s used a computer in Manchester, writing what today looks like horribly hacky code, and I don&#8217;t think he really thought about the connection of Turing machines to what he was doing. He was by then interested in biological growth processes, and&#8212;somewhat shockingly&#8212;he didn&#8217;t use anything like Turing machines (or cellular automata) to model them, even though those actually turn out to be good models. Instead, he went back to plain differential equations&#8230;</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Interesting question. The idea of universal computation actually arose at about the same time in three places: Gödel&#8217;s &#8220;general recursive functions&#8221;, Turing&#8217;s &#8220;Turing machines&#8221;, and Church&#8217;s &#8220;lambda calculus&#8221;. It turned out that all these formulations are equivalent, and that was actually known pretty quickly. But Turing&#8217;s one is much easier to understand, <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Interesting question. The idea of universal computation actually arose at about the same time in three places: G枚del’s “general recursive functions”, Turing’s “Turing machines”, and Church’s “lambda calculus”. It turned out that all these formulations are equivalent, and that was actually known pretty quickly. But Turing’s one is much easier to understand, <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="historical-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=historical-perspectives">Historical Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="people" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=people">People</a> </div> </div> <div class="project just-curious people" data-position="normal" data-date="2016-07-20 16:52:19"> <p class="date">July 20, 2016</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4tspts/im_stephen_wolframask_me_anything/d5k0ekb/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2016/07/20/everyone-likes-to-point-out-the-scientific-inconsistencies-in-sci-fi-movies-tv-shows-e-g-completely-ignoring-the-laws-of-physics-but-what-do-filmmakers-miss-when-they-portray-scientists-and-inn/">Everyone likes to point out the scientific inconsistencies in sci-fi movies & TV shows (e.g., completely ignoring the laws of physics). But what do filmmakers miss when they portray scientists and innovators themselves?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>I&#8217;m often quite shocked at how bad the portrayals of science are even in high-budget movies. Sometimes I can see that getting the science wrong is necessary in order to have the story work. But often the bad science seems to be quite gratuitous. And I have to believe that for extremely little extra effort there&#8217;d be an extra market for these movies etc. if they got the science right.</p> <p>A few years back, my company made the math content for a TV show called <em>Numb3rs</em>&mdash;and people really seemed to appreciate the &#8220;real math&#8221; (see <a href="http://numb3rs.wolfram.com/">http://numb3rs.wolfram.com/</a>). The Wolfram Language and Mathematica get used a lot to create effects and sometimes displays for movies (e.g. by Kip Thorne et al. for <em>Interstellar</em>: <a href="https://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/customer-stories/academy-award-visuals-mathematica-wolfram-language.en.html">https://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/customer-stories/academy-award-visuals-mathematica-wolfram-language.en.html</a>).</p> <p>About a year ago I happened to get involved in doing science consulting for a fairly big-budget movie that&#8217;s now called <em>Arrival</em> that&#8217;s supposed to be released this fall. It was an interesting experience; I&#8217;m very curious how the actual movie will come out. Who knows, perhaps some of my mannerisms will even wind up portrayed by the actor who&#8217;s a physicist in the movie&#8230; (Oliver Sacks once told me what an uncanny experience he&#8217;d had watching Robin Williams portray him in a movie and interpret his various mannerisms so well&#8230;)</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="I&#8217;m often quite shocked at how bad the portrayals of science are even in high-budget movies. Sometimes I can see that getting the science wrong is necessary in order to have the story work. But often the bad science seems to be quite gratuitous. And I have to believe that for extremely little extra effort there&#8217;d be an extra market for these movies etc. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> I’m often quite shocked at how bad the portrayals of science are even in high-budget movies. Sometimes I can see that getting the science wrong is necessary in order to have the story work. But often the bad science seems to be quite gratuitous. And I have to believe that for extremely little extra effort there’d be an extra market for these movies etc. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="just-curious" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=just-curious">Just Curious...</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="people" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=people">People</a> </div> </div> <div class="project historical-perspectives people" data-position="normal" data-date="2016-07-20 22:45:44"> <p class="date">July 20, 2016</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4tspts/im_stephen_wolframask_me_anything/d5jxthf/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2016/07/20/in-writing-about-all-of-these-intelligent-people-did-you-notice-any-environmental-factors-which-may-have-contributed-to-their-success/">In writing about all of these intelligent people, did you notice any environmental factors which may have contributed to their success?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Interesting question. Richard Feynman always used to tell me that he thought &#8220;peace of mind&#8221; was a critical prerequisite to doing creative work. But certainly not everyone in the book had that when they were doing their most important work. And actually I think if there&#8217;s one theme I noticed it&#8217;s that external stimuli and external constraints often seem to play a crucial role. People don&#8217;t seem to come up with great ideas by just sitting around and thinking for a long time. What seems much more often to happen is that there&#8217;s some external question or external issue that comes up&#8212;or the people are just trying to do some job they have&#8212;and thinking deeply about that is what leads them to do some great idea.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Interesting question. Richard Feynman always used to tell me that he thought &#8220;peace of mind&#8221; was a critical prerequisite to doing creative work. But certainly not everyone in the book had that when they were doing their most important work. And actually I think if there&#8217;s one theme I noticed it&#8217;s that external stimuli and external constraints often seem to play a crucial role. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Interesting question. Richard Feynman always used to tell me that he thought “peace of mind” was a critical prerequisite to doing creative work. But certainly not everyone in the book had that when they were doing their most important work. And actually I think if there’s one theme I noticed it’s that external stimuli and external constraints often seem to play a crucial role. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="historical-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=historical-perspectives">Historical Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="people" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=people">People</a> </div> </div> <div class="project historical-perspectives people" data-position="normal" data-date="2016-07-20 22:52:01"> <p class="date">July 20, 2016</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4tspts/im_stephen_wolframask_me_anything/d5jxums/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2016/07/20/who-in-your-book-idea-makers-do-you-relate-to-most-or-who-do-you-think-is-most-like-you-and-why/">Who in your book <em>Idea Makers</em> do you relate to most? Or who do you think is most like you, and why?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Difficult question. In terms of the things I&#8217;ve been interested in, Alan Turing and Gottfried Leibniz are probably the closest. But in terms of personality, they were very different from each other, and, I think, from me. I&#8217;m basically a &#8220;long projects&#8221; person: I work on projects for decades (Mathematica, Wolfram Language, Wolfram|Alpha, <em>A New Kind of Science</em>,&#8230;). Alan Turing, for example, was more of a &#8220;short projects&#8221; person: he&#8217;d work on one topic for a couple of years, then move on. Of course, one of his &#8220;topics&#8221; was inventing the idea of universal computation, which later on turned out to be a hugely big deal.</p> <p>Leibniz was more a &#8220;long projects&#8221; person. He spent decades trying to perfect his mechanical calculator, and he pursued his idea of a universal language for representing everything (something I&#8217;m also very interested in) for much of his life. It&#8217;s a little hard to connect with his life: he spent a lot of it wearing an oversize wig, and hanging out &#8220;at court&#8221; trying to persuade dukes etc. to support his projects. I think I would fail &#8220;at court&#8221; very quickly: I&#8217;m much more of an entrepreneur who just makes things happen myself; I&#8217;d be horrible at lobbying to get a government or whatever to do things.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Difficult question. In terms of the things I&#8217;ve been interested in, Alan Turing and Gottfried Leibniz are probably the closest. But in terms of personality, they were very different from each other, and, I think, from me. I&#8217;m basically a &#8220;long projects&#8221; person: I work on projects for decades (Mathematica, Wolfram Language, <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Difficult question. In terms of the things I’ve been interested in, Alan Turing and Gottfried Leibniz are probably the closest. But in terms of personality, they were very different from each other, and, I think, from me. I’m basically a “long projects” person: I work on projects for decades (Mathematica, Wolfram Language, <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="historical-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=historical-perspectives">Historical Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="people" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=people">People</a> </div> </div> <div class="project historical-perspectives people" data-position="normal" data-date="2016-07-20 22:55:05"> <p class="date">July 20, 2016</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4tspts/im_stephen_wolframask_me_anything/d5jxvns/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2016/07/20/how-much-commonality-is-there-between-legendary-mathematiciansscientists-from-ages-ago-say-from-1816-and-more-modern-scientists-would-those-legendary-scientists-from-centuries-past-be-significantl/">How much commonality is there between legendary mathematicians/scientists from ages ago, say from 1816, and more modern scientists? Would those legendary scientists from centuries past be significantly changed if they were brought up in this more modern environment?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Yes, things have certainly changed a lot from 1816 to 2016. (Note that the book does include quite a few recent people too.)</p> <p>One important practical feature is that people are on average living longer. Ada Lovelace and Ramanujan, for example, would almost certainly have lived decades longer with modern healthcare. So would George Boole.</p> <p>About the actual doing of math and science: well, we have computers now, and they make a huge difference. But another thing is that math and science as fields are much bigger. They&#8217;ve always had a certain amount of institutional structure, and many of the people I wrote about had to overcome inertia from that structure to get their ideas out. But I think in well established areas, that&#8217;s a bigger effect today. I&#8217;ve been very fortunate to be a &#8220;private scientist&#8221; outside of institutional constraints most of the time. But most scientists aren&#8217;t in that situation. And it tends to be awfully difficult to get genuinely new ideas funded etc., particularly in the better-established areas.</p> <p>I have to say that the vast majority of major advances tend to come when fields are fairly new, and when there aren&#8217;t many people in them. And there are always new fields coming up. But &#8220;standard fields&#8221; that everyone&#8217;s heard of tend to be quite big by the time everyone&#8217;s heard of them.</p> <p>In the big well-established fields today, lots of people work in large collaborations. But the fact is that big ideas tend to be created by individual people (or sometimes a couple of people)&#8212;not big collaborations. Those ideas often make use of lots of work done by collaborations, etc. But when there&#8217;s something new and creative being done, it&#8217;s usually done by one (or perhaps two) people. And these days I have the sense that people don&#8217;t really understand that any more: they assume that unless it&#8217;s a big collective thing, it can&#8217;t be right. It was a different story when math and science were smaller.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Yes, things have certainly changed a lot from 1816 to 2016. (Note that the book does include quite a few recent people too.) One important practical feature is that people are on average living longer. Ada Lovelace and Ramanujan, for example, would almost certainly have lived decades longer with modern healthcare. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Yes, things have certainly changed a lot from 1816 to 2016. (Note that the book does include quite a few recent people too.) One important practical feature is that people are on average living longer. Ada Lovelace and Ramanujan, for example, would almost certainly have lived decades longer with modern healthcare. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="historical-perspectives" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=historical-perspectives">Historical Perspectives</a> <a class="tag" data-tag="people" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=people">People</a> </div> </div> <div class="project people" data-position="normal" data-date="2019-03-04 16:42:01"> <p class="date">March 4, 2019</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/axf32h/i_am_stephen_wolfram_founder_ceo_of_wolfram/eht73jp/' target='_blank'>Reddit AMA</a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2019/03/04/apparently-you-did-a-talk-at-y-combinator-in-its-early-days-any-particular-memories-of-steve-huffman-and-alexis-ohanian-and-aaron-swartz-when-they-were-young/">Apparently you did a talk at Y Combinator in its early days. Any particular memories of Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian and Aaron Swartz when they were young?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>I did do a talk, and even went to the very first Demo Day. As it happens, I was there with my then-10-year-old precociously-business-oriented son &#8230; and he kept a scorecard of the companies. His best pick was a company called Kiko, that was a calendar system. I almost invested in that. In the end, that company didn&#8217;t make it (it got sold on eBay I think), but its founders went on to start Twitch&#8230;. My son&#8217;s other comment was that Sam Altman (who had a company called Loopt) was &#8220;the most businesslike person there&#8221;. Curiously, I think Sam now runs Y Combinator&#8230; I did see the Reddit presentation at that Demo Day, but I&#8217;m embarrassed to say it didn&#8217;t make that much of an impression on me. I knew Aaron Swartz &#8230; and he talked to me a bunch about his company Infogami (as well as about &#8220;eating only white food&#8221; and other curious things). [Actually, as I write this, one of the other things I remember about that Demo Day was talking to a slightly older entrepreneur who was unhappy with his VCs but was pleased that he&#8217;d just managed to install his dog as his CEO&#8230;..]</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="I did do a talk, and even went to the very first Demo Day. As it happens, I was there with my then-10-year-old precociously-business-oriented son &#8230; and he kept a scorecard of the companies. His best pick was a company called Kiko, that was a calendar system. I almost invested in that. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> I did do a talk, and even went to the very first Demo Day. As it happens, I was there with my then-10-year-old precociously-business-oriented son … and he kept a scorecard of the companies. His best pick was a company called Kiko, that was a calendar system. I almost invested in that. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="people" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=people">People</a> </div> </div> <div class="project people" data-position="normal" data-date="2019-12-18 19:25:54"> <p class="date">December 18, 2019</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://guykawasaki.com/stephen-wolfram-remarkable-people/' target='_blank'>Interview by Guy Kawasaki, <em>Remarkable People Podcast</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2019/12/18/do-you-have-a-story-about-steve-jobs-and-how-he-helped/">Do you have a story about Steve Jobs, and how he helped in naming Mathematica?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>Steve was&#8230; I started interacting with him pretty soon after we had very early versions of Mathematica because he was going to bring out this NeXT computer and it was oriented towards education. We made this deal early on to bundle what would be called Mathematica on the NeXT computer so everybody who got a NeXT could use Mathematica. It turned out that it was a pretty good deal on both sides. It was pretty smart of Steve to figure out that was a good idea. A bunch of people bought NeXTs because of that. A bunch of people used our stuff because of that&#8230;</p> <p>But in terms of naming your products&#8230; I had thought of the name Mathematica, but I thought it was too long, too ponderous, etc. I had this whole list of other names. I put that list on the web some number of years ago. What&#8217;s funny is all these names&#8230; including really horrifying awful ones&#8230; have been used as product names in the intervening years. But Steve had a theory of naming at that point, which was take the generic word for something, and I think he said: &#8220;Romanticize it&#8221;. He used the example of Trinitron, which was a now long-lost brand probably from Sony, which was a television brand and represented the three cathode-ray tube guns or something in color television, which younger people who are listening to this have probably never heard of. It makes me feel old.</p> <p>In any case, at that time, the killer app of the thing we were building was for mathematical computation. In the end, the bigger picture is all about computation in general, but at that time, math was the first killer app for that type of approach. So Steve was&#8230; &#8220;You&#8217;ve got to call it Mathematica because it&#8217;s like math, but it&#8217;s romanticizing that word&#8221;.</p> <p>I always had very civilized interactions with Steve, actually. I also liked the fact that I would tell him something, and he would say, &#8220;I don&#8217;t care&#8221;, and then sometime later, he would [say], &#8220;Actually, I do care&#8221;. That happened with Wolfram|Alpha. I showed it to him before I released it, and he says, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know why I care about this&#8221;. A little while goes by and [there&#8217;s] this little company called Siri that had licensed our stuff and had put a wrapper around it, and made a thing that could be thought of as an intelligent assistant rather than the use case that we were primarily dealing with, which was ask questions on the web. Then he looks at this, and he says, &#8220;Okay, now I get it&#8221;.</p> <p>There are a bunch of things that&#8230; When we were working on the first version of Mathematica and interacting a lot with NeXT, there were all kinds of &#8220;Just be more ambitious&#8221; type pieces of input from Steve that were nice.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="Steve was&#8230; I started interacting with him pretty soon after we had very early versions of Mathematica because he was going to bring out this NeXT computer and it was oriented towards education. We made this deal early on to bundle what would be called Mathematica on the NeXT computer so everybody who got a NeXT could use Mathematica. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> Steve was… I started interacting with him pretty soon after we had very early versions of Mathematica because he was going to bring out this NeXT computer and it was oriented towards education. We made this deal early on to bundle what would be called Mathematica on the NeXT computer so everybody who got a NeXT could use Mathematica. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="people" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=people">People</a> </div> </div> <div class="project people" data-position="normal" data-date="2019-12-18 20:51:07"> <p class="date">December 18, 2019</p> <p class="asker">From: <a href='https://guykawasaki.com/stephen-wolfram-remarkable-people/' target='_blank'>Interview by Guy Kawasaki, <em>Remarkable People Podcast</em></a></p> <h2 class="projectname"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/2019/12/18/did-steve-jobs-ever-try-to-explain-math-or-physics-to-you/">Did Steve Jobs ever try to explain math or physics to you?</a></h2> <div class="introtext" data-text="<p>No, I don&#8217;t think so. It turns out I know somebody who knew Steve in high school. The person who I know who knew Steve in high school is now a physicist. I actually saw him recently at Washington. He was like, &#8220;Yeah, Steve was always kind of a weird person in high school. He was one of the kids who would go to some other nearby high school&#8230;&#8221; which my friend also did&#8230; &#8220;and go learn calculus and things&#8221;. I knew that bit about Steve, that even though he was like, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know anything about this math stuff&#8221;, etc., he actually had learned calculus when he was in high school. That was one of those kind of outer-band pieces of information that I happen to have.</p> <a class='less' href='#close'>Close answer »</a>" data-truncate="No, I don&#8217;t think so. It turns out I know somebody who knew Steve in high school. The person who I know who knew Steve in high school is now a physicist. I actually saw him recently at Washington. He was like, &#8220;Yeah, Steve was always kind of a weird person in high school. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a>"> No, I don’t think so. It turns out I know somebody who knew Steve in high school. The person who I know who knew Steve in high school is now a physicist. I actually saw him recently at Washington. He was like, “Yeah, Steve was always kind of a weird person in high school. <a href="#more" class="more chevron-after">Read more</a> </div> <div class="text"> <a class="tag" data-tag="people" href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/main/?c=people">People</a> </div> </div> </div> </div> <footer id="footer"> <div class="inner"><a href="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/contact/">Contact</a> <span class="pipe">|</span> © Stephen Wolfram, LLC</div> </footer> <script src="https://www.stephenwolfram.com/questions/wp-content/themes/questions/js/scripts.js"></script> </main> <!-- begin framework footer en --> <div id ="IPstripe-wrap"></div> <script src="/common/stripe/stripe.en.js"></script> <!-- end framework footer en --> </body> </html>