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BACKGROUND FOR INTRODUCTIONS OF STEPHEN
WOLFRAM
General Notes
- We ask that you do not use visuals in your introduction, since this may cause trouble with the fairly elaborate AV setup for Dr. Wolfram's talk.
- Dr. Wolfram's talk will include background about the chronology of his
work, do not feel compelled to go into elaborate detail.
Anecdotally
- If one looks at his website, there's a list of important papers by Stephen
Wolfram. Then there is a gap of more than a decade. In 2002, that gap has
become known to the world as A New Kind of Science.
- Students will especially be glad to hear that Stephen Wolfram successfully
parlayed the concept of "the all-nighter" to write A New Kind of Science.
Wolfram worked through the night, slept through mid-day and tended to the
business of running a major international software company in the afternoon.
- This is the first time in fifteen years that Dr. Wolfram is giving talks
about his science.
Biographical Information
An extended bio:
Stephen Wolfram was educated at Eton, Oxford, and Caltech, receiving his
Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1979 at the age of 20. His early work in
physics and computer science was recognized by a MacArthur award in 1981.
In the early 1980s he made a series of now-classic discoveries about systems
known as cellular automata, leading to numerous applications in physics,
mathematics, computer science, biology, and other fields.
In 1986 he founded Wolfram Research, Inc. and began the creation of
Mathematica---now the world's leading software system for technical
computing
and symbolic programming (and tool which made A New Kind of Science
possible). Over the past decade Wolfram has divided his time between
leadership of his company and pursuit of basic science.
The results of Wolfram's fifteen years of work were presented for the first
time in his book, A New Kind of Science (May 2002). An instant bestseller, A New Kind of Science constituted international science news and quickly emerged as one of the most-discussed science books in decades.
A brief bio:
Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica and the author of
A New
Kind of Science. Having had an academic career beginning at an early age, Stephen
Wolfram founded Wolfram Research in 1987, and has been its CEO since.
Specifics about Stephen Wolfram's Background
- Educational background: Stephen Wolfram grew up in England and was
educated
at Eton and Oxford. He got started in science young, and published his
scientific first paper--on particle physics--when he was 15. He continued
publishing in particle physics and cosmology at a prodigious rate for several
years, receiving his PhD in theoretical physics from Caltech in 1979 at the
age of 20.
- Wolfram's academic career included professor of physics, math, computer
sci., U. Ill., Urbana-Champaign (1986-90), founder & director, Center for
Complex Systems Research (1986-1988) and with Institute for Advanced Study,
Princeton, N.J. (1983-86)
with Calif. Inst. Tech., Pasadena (1979-82).
- After his successful academic career, Wolfram founded his company, Wolfram
Research in 1986.
About A New Kind of Science
In A New Kind of Science, Stephen Wolfram presents for the first time a
series of surprising and dramatic discoveries that force a whole new way of
looking at the operation of our universe. Wolfram's
discoveries---which build on his now-classic work from the early
1980s---have been awaited by the scientific community for more than a
decade. Wolfram's new science
is sure to become an integral part of future intellectual development in
many fields,
including physics, biology, computer science, mathematics, technology,
philosophy and the social sciences.
Wolfram shows that by thinking in terms of simple programs instead of
mathematical equations it becomes possible to capture the essential
mechanisms of many systems in nature that have eluded scientific
analysis--often for centuries. Wolfram's computer experiments now
reveal a new world that overturns some of our most basic intuitions
about how things ought to work.
Wolfram's discoveries have allowed him to address a host of issues that have
never before been accessible to science. Through his work, the achievements
of earlier initiatives such as cybernetics, chaos theory, fractals, and
complexity theory---whose further progress has been stymied by the lack of
these key discoveries---are now subsumed as elements in a much larger
intellectual structure.
The success of A New Kind of Science represents a paradigm shift---one that
defines a whole new way of thinking and creates infinite possibilities for
scientific and technological breakthroughs in the future.
Wolfram spent 11 years preparing the book.
The Success of the Book
- A New Kind of Science may have been the first science book since
Darwin's
Origin of the Species to sell out its first printing on its first day. It's
doubtful that Darwin had to compete with academics like Dr. Phil for the
attention of the book buying public.
- A New Kind of Science remained number one at Amazon.com for three straight
days after news about its release broke in The New York Times.
- Articles about Stephen Wolfram and the book have appeared in publications
throughout the world--including Time, Newsweek, Business Week, US News and
World Report, Wired, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Los Angeles Times, The
Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and Nature.
- The book has been the subject of six separate articles in The New York
Times.
- A testament to the popular success of the book: a reference to the book
ran
in the Dilbert newsletter.
Selected Quotes about Stephen Wolfram and the book
- George Johnson in The New York Times Book Review: "A first-class
intellectual thrill....No one has worked so hard to produce such a beautiful
book. It's too bad that more science isn't delivered this way."
- Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey wrote: "Stephen's magnum
opus may be the book of the decade, if not the century. It's so comprehensive
that perhaps he should have called it 'a new kind of universe'....Even those
who skip the 1200 pages of (extremely lucid) text will find the
computer-generated illustrations fascinating. My friend Hal is very sorry he
hadn't thought of them first..."
- Wired called him "The Man Who Cracked the Code to Everything"
- Business Week: "Wolfram's theories may change thinking on
nature and the
universe."
About Wolfram Research
Wolfram Research is the world's leading developer of technical computing
software, offering organization-wide computing solutions. Led by
Mathematica, its flagship product, the company's software is relied
on today
by nearly two million users worldwide and has been the recipient of many
industry awards for technical excellence. Wolfram Research, a privately held
company, was founded in 1987 by Stephen Wolfram and is headquartered in
Champaign, Illinois, with offices in Europe and Japan.
Wolfram Research is also dedicated to providing free content-rich educational web resources, such as the popular Mathworld website.
Useful Links:
Stephen Wolfram's
website
Wolfram Research
Media coverage of A New Kind
of Science
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