Stephen Wolfram

Stephen Wolfram

Infobox_Scientist
name = Stephen Wolfram


imagesize = 200 px
birth_date = birth date and age|1959|8|29
birth_place = flagicon|ENG London, England, UK
death_date =
death_place =
residence = Concord, Massachusetts
nationality = British
field = Mathematician
work_institution = Wolfram Research
alma_mater = Oxford University, Caltech
doctoral_advisor =
doctoral_students =
known_for = Creator of Mathematica
Author of "A New Kind of Science"
author_abbreviation_bot =
author_abbreviation_zoo =
prizes = MacArthur Fellowship
religion =
footnotes =

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

Biography

Stephen Wolfram's parents were Jewish refugees who immigrated to England in 1933. Citation
url=http://www.juedischeliteraturwestfalen.de/index.php?valex=101&vArticle=1&author_id=00000308&id=1
title=Jüdische Schriftsteller in Westfalen: Hugo Wolfram
] Citation
url=http://www.nndb.com/people/325/000022259/
title=Stephen Wolfram
] Wolfram's father, Hugo Wolfram, was a novelist, and his mother, Sybil Wolfram, was a professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford. Wolfram was educated at Eton public school. Often described as a child prodigy, he published an article on particle physics at age 16 [cite web|url=http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?j=AUJPA,28,479|title=Hadronic Electrons? Note that the SPIRES date of April 1975 refers to the date the preprint was received, not the date of journal publication.] and entered Oxford University (St John's College) at age 17. He wrote a widely cited paper on heavy quark production at age 17.

He received his Ph.D. in particle physics from Caltech at age 20 [ Thesis listing: [http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?fa=Wolfram,+Stephen+and+k+thesis Some Topics In Theoretical High-Energy Physics] ] and joined the faculty there. He became highly interested in cellular automata at age 21. His work with Geoffrey Fox on the theory of the strong interaction is still used today in experimental particle physics. [See [http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?j=NUPHA,B168,285 A Model for Parton Showers in QCD] and [http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?j=PRLTA,41,1581 Observables for the Analysis of Event Shapes in e+ e- Annihilation and Other Processes] ]

Stephen Wolfram was in 1987 founding editor of the journal Complex systems.

Work

ymbolic Manipulation Program

Wolfram 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. [Kolata, Gina. "Caltech Torn by Dispute Over Software," "Science", 27 May 1983 (Vol. 220, No. 4600) issue, pgs. 932-934.] 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. In the middle 1980s Wolfram worked on simulations of physical processes (such as turbulent fluid flow) with cellular automata on the Connection Machine alongside Richard Feynman.cite web|url=http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0504.html?printable=1|title=Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine|author=W. Daniel Hillis|publisher=Physics Today|date=1989-02|accessdaymonth=3 November |accessyear=2006]

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 develop and market the program. Stephen Wolfram is currently the majority shareholder.

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.

The simplest universal Turing machine

In the NKS book, Wolfram claimed to have found the simplest known Universal Turing machine, one with 2 states and 5 colors. Afterwards, Wolfram made an empirical investigation of 2,985,984 (= 126) possible 2-state 3-color Turing machines (because it was known that no machine with 2 states and 2 colors can be universal), and from among these candidates he selected one that he had an intuition might indeed be the simplest universal Turing machine.

A US$25,000 prize [cite web|url=http://blog.wolfram.com/2007/05/today_we_put_a_prize_on_a_smal.html| title=The Prize Announcement; Looking for the formal proof] was announced to be awarded to the first person or group who would provide a formal proof that that particular candidate is universal or that it is not. Alex Smith, a 20-year-old undergraduate from Birmingham, UK, claimed to have proven the universality of Wolfram's 2,3 Turing machine and was awarded the prize. [cite web|url=http://blog.wolfram.com/2007/10/the_prize_is_won_the_simplest.html|title=The Prize Is Won; The Simplest Universal Turing Machine Is Proved The October 24 entry at Wolfram Research's blog announcing the news.] Computer scientist Vaughan Pratt later claimed to have found an error in the reasoning of the proof. [cite web|url=http://cs.nyu.edu/pipermail/fom/2007-October/012156.html|title=Argument against the proof claimed in the FOM list] Wolfram Research and Alex Smith disputed Pratt's claim on the same discussion group. [cite web|url=http://cs.nyu.edu/pipermail/fom/2007-October/012149.html|title=Stephen Wolfram reply in the FOM list] [cite web|url=http://cs.nyu.edu/pipermail/fom/2007-October/012162.html|title=Todd Rowland reply to Vaughan Pratt in the FOM list] [cite web|url=http://cs.nyu.edu/pipermail/fom/2007-October/012164.html|title=Alex Smith reply to Vaughan Pratt in the FOM list]

References

Further reading

* [http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/toc.html Full text of "A New Kind of Science"] by Stephen Wolfram; MIT [http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/149/ video overview]
* [http://www.rudyrucker.com/lifebox/ "The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul"] by Rudy Rucker, a book that presents NKS ideas
* [http://www.math.usf.edu/~eclark/ANKOS_reviews.html A collection of reviews of Stephen Wolfram's book, "A New Kind of Science"]
*cite journal |last=Maddox |first=John |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1983 |month= |title=Simulating the Replication of Life |journal=Nature |volume=305 |issue=5934 |pages=469 |doi=10.1038/305469a0 |url= |accessdate= |quote=

External links

* [http://blog.wolfram.com Wolfram Research blog to which Stephen Wolfram contributes]
* [http://www.stephenwolfram.com Stephen Wolfram's personal website]
* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5011797335427959751&q=wolfram Video of Wolfram speaking at UCSD H.Paul Rockwood Memorial Lecture]
* [http://necsi.org/events/iccs/video/iccs2002sunday/9-wolframclip.html Video of Stephen Wolfram speaking at the International Conference on Complex Systems, hosted by the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI)]
* [http://www.forbes.com/asap/2000/1127/162.html God, Stephen Wolfram, and Everything Else] - forbes.com article
* [http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail202.html IT Conversations: Stephen Wolfram - A New Kind of Science]
* [http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/10/13/stephen-wolfram-tech-future07-cx_1015wolfram.html Stephen Wolfram On The Future] by David M. Ewalt, Forbes, October 15, 2007.
* [http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F50911FE3E5C0C778EDDAC0894D9484D81 Physicist Awarded 'Genius' Prize Finds Reality in Invisible World] by Gladwin Hill, The New York Times, May 24, 1981. (subscription req.)
*" [http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/AFaceFromWords/ A Face From Words] " by Enrique Zeleny, The Wolfram Demonstrations Project.

Persondata
NAME=Wolfram, Stephen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=British mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH=August 29, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH=London, England, UK
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=


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