Stephen Wolfram

Stephen Wolfram
Born (1959-08-29) 29 August 1959 (age 52)
London, England, UK
Nationality British
Fields Mathematics, Physics, Computing
Institutions Wolfram Research
Alma mater Oxford University, Caltech
Known for Creator of Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha
Author of A New Kind of Science
Notable awards MacArthur Fellowship

Stephen Wolfram (born 29 August 1959) is a British scientist[1] and the chief designer of the Mathematica software application and the Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine.

Biography

Stephen Wolfram's parents were Jewish refugees who emigrated from Westphalia, Germany, to England in 1933.[2][3] Wolfram's father Hugo was a textile manufacturer and novelist (Into a Neutral Country) and his mother Sybil was a professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford.[4] He has a younger brother, Conrad.[5]

Wolfram was educated at Eton, where he amazed and frustrated teachers by his brilliance and refusal to be taught, instead doing other students' math homework for money.[4] Wolfram published an article on particle physics[6] but claimed to be bored and left Eton prematurely in 1976.[7] He entered St John's College, Oxford at age 17 but found lectures "awful".[4] Working independently, Wolfram published a widely cited paper on heavy quark production at age 18[3] and nine other papers[4] before leaving in 1978 without graduating.[7] He received a Ph.D. in particle physics from the California Institute of Technology at age 20,[8] joined the faculty there and received one of the first MacArthur awards in 1981, at age 21.[7] According to Google Scholar Stephen Wolfram is cited by over 30,000 publications (up to April 2012) and has an h-index of 58. [9]

Wolfram's work with Geoffrey Fox on the theory of the strong interaction is still used today in experimental particle physics.[10] Wolfram is married to a mathematician and has four children.[11]

Wolfram received a standing ovation[12] for his 2010 TED Talk, Computing the theory of everything[13], as well as his 2012 talk at SXSW, where he was named Speaker of the Event[14].

Work

Symbolic Manipulation Program

Main article: Symbolic Manipulation Program

Wolfram led the development of the computer algebra system SMP (Symbolic Manipulation Program) in the Caltech physics department during 1979–1981. A dispute with the administration over the intellectual property rights regarding SMP—patents, copyright, and faculty involvement in commercial ventures—eventually caused him to resign from Caltech.[15] SMP was further developed and marketed commercially by Inference Corp. of Los Angeles during 1983–1988.

Complex systems and cellular automata

In 1983, Wolfram left for the School of Natural Sciences of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he studied cellular automata, mainly with computer simulations. He produced a series of papers systematically investigating the class of elementary cellular automata, conceiving the Wolfram code, a naming system for one-dimensional cellular automata, and a classification scheme for the complexity of their behavior. He conjectured that the Rule 110 cellular automaton may be Turing complete. 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.[16] and helped ignite the field of complex systems founding the first institute devoted to this subject, The Center for Complex Systems Research (CCSR) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign[17] and the journal Complex Systems in 1987.[18]

Mathematica

Main article: 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.[3]

A New Kind of Science

Main article: A New Kind of Science

From 1992 to 2002, he worked on his controversial book A New Kind of Science, which presents an empirical study of very simple computational systems. Additionally, it argues that for fundamental reasons these types of systems, rather than traditional mathematics, are needed to model and understand complexity in nature. Wolfram's conclusion is that the universe is digital in its nature, and runs on fundamental laws which can be described as simple programs. He predicts a realization of this within the scientific communities will have a major and revolutionary influence on physics, chemistry and biology and the majority of the scientific areas in general, which is the reason for the book's title.

Since the release of the book in 2002, Wolfram has split his time between developing Mathematica and encouraging people to get involved with the subject matter of A New Kind of Science by giving talks, holding conferences, and starting a summer school devoted to the topic.[19]

Computational knowledge engine

Main article: Wolfram Alpha

In March 2009, Wolfram announced Wolfram|Alpha, an answer engine with a new approach to knowledge extraction and an easy-to-use interface, launched on May 16, 2009.[20][21] And a Pro version launched on February 8, 2012[22] The engine is based on natural language processing, a large library of algorithms and answers queries using the approach described in A New Kind of Science. The application programming interface (API) allows other applications to extend and enhance Alpha.[23] Wolfram|Alpha is the answer engine behind Microsoft's Bing[24] and Apple's Siri (along with Google and Yelp!) answering factual questions.[25]

References

  1. ^ Stephen Wolfram, Wolfram Alpha, http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Stephen+Wolfram, retrieved 15 May 2012 
  2. ^ "Jüdische Schriftsteller in Westfalen: Hogarth Wolfram". http://www.juedischeliteraturwestfalen.de/index.php?valex=101&vArticle=1&author_id=00000308&id=1 
  3. ^ a b c Giles, J (May 2002). "Stephen Wolfram". Nature 417 (6886): 216–8. doi:10.1038/417216a. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 12015565. http://www.nndb.com/people/325/000022259/ 
  4. ^ a b c d Levy, Steven (10.06). "The Man Who Cracked The Code to Everything ...". Wired. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.06/wolfram_pr.html. Retrieved March 20, 2011. 
  5. ^ "Stephen Wolfram". nndb.com. http://www.nndb.com/people/325/000022259/. Retrieved 2009-05-11. 
  6. ^ "Hadronic Electrons?". http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?j=AUJPA,28,479.  The SPIRES date of April 1975 refers to the date the preprint was received, not the date of journal publication.
  7. ^ a b c Arndt, Michael (2002-05-17). "Stephen Wolfram's Simple Science". BusinessWeek. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2002/tc20020516_7010.htm. Retrieved March 20, 2011. 
  8. ^ Thesis listing: Some Topics In Theoretical High-Energy Physics
  9. ^ "Google Scholar citations". http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=%22stephen+wolfram%22&hl=en&btnG=Search&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=on. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  10. ^ See A Model for Parton Showers in QCD and Observables for the Analysis of Event Shapes in e+ e- Annihilation and Other Processes
  11. ^ "Stephen Wolfram". Sunday Profile. 2009-05-31. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 
  12. ^ Levy, Steven (12 Feb 2010), TED 2010: How to Ace a TED Talk, WIRED, http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/02/ted-2010-how-to-ace-a-ted-talk/, retrieved 16 May 2012 
  13. ^ Stephen Wolfram: Computing a theory of everything, TED, Feb 2010, http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_theory_of_everything.html, retrieved 16 May 2012 
  14. ^ SXSW Award Winners 2012, http://sxsw.com/interactive/awards/winners, retrieved 16 May 2012 
  15. ^ Kolata, Gina. "Caltech Torn by Dispute Over Software," Science, 27 May 1983 (Vol. 220, No. 4600) issue, pp. 932-934.
  16. ^ W. Daniel Hillis (1989-02). "Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine". Physics Today. http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0504.html?printable=1. Retrieved 3 November 2006. 
  17. ^ "The Man Who Cracked The Code to Everything". http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.06/wolfram_pr.html. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  18. ^ "The Man Who Cracked The Code to Everything". http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.06/wolfram_pr.html. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  19. ^ TED (2010) Stephen Wolfram: Scientist, inventor. [Online] http://www.ted.com/speakers/stephen_wolfram.html (accessed 19 January 2010).
  20. ^ Wolfram, Stephen (2009-03-05). "Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming!". Wolfram blog. http://blog.wolfram.com/2009/03/05/wolframalpha-is-coming/. Retrieved 2009-03-09. 
  21. ^ "Wolfram|Alpha". http://www.wolframalpha.com/. Retrieved 2009-03-09. 
  22. ^ "Announcing Wolfram". Wolfram. http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2012/02/08/announcing-wolframalpha-pro. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  23. ^ Johnson, Bobbie (2009-03-09). "British search engine 'could rival Google'". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/09/search-engine-google. Retrieved 2009-03-09. 
  24. ^ "Answering your questions with Bing and Wolfram Alpha". "Microsoft's Bing blog". http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2010/08/10/answering-your-questions-with-bing-and-wolfram-alpha.aspx. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 
  25. ^ "iPhone features". Apple. http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html. Retrieved 2012-04-07. 

External links

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