A New Kind of Science

Rating:
Summary: maybe i am missing his genius??
Review: Ok I recently graduated high school, so maybe I am not smart enought to understand the true grandeur of this work, but when I do, I'll be sure to post another review...

The immediate impression that I got was that you (Dr. Wolram) said that the output of these simple programs exhibits great complexity akin to nature...Ok dude, these programs are based on numbers, the number of steps...so the complexity lies not within the program or your genius, but the complexity of natural numbers...A rule much simpler than any of yours has lead to the Riemann Hypothesis, a 150 year old problem in mathematics...What is that rule you ask, well its precicely "+1" with which you get 2 from 1, 3 from 2, etc... Where is the complexity? The distribution of primes, and it is that complexity which allows your g@y-a$$ cellular automata (next time think of a more suitable and humble name) to produce seemingly random, complex outputs, ok?

Alright even if you had made some cool discoveries with these programs, you dont have control over them, as you said your results are purely accidental...Morover how can you even think of modeling nature with that shi7? The complexity of, say a human, is not based on numbers (unless you are willing to assume that, which there isnt enough evidence for) but on the environment in which he lives. Thus your program is analogous to the DNA while the human being is analogous to the output, so I guess that how you want to model nature with your programs? Uh, ok... The environment and numbers are different things, and maybe if you made some sort of predictions with your fancy-smancy cellular automata the ergo concordantly, irrevocably YOUR "new science" would deserve some merit...

So far I see nothing more than a pciture book, of comparatively unimpressive fractals...The complexity of which is nothing like trying to show that the complex root of the Zeta Function has real part of 1/2...

Rating:
Summary: Longwinded, Egotistical, Boring, Poorly Written
Review: If you want to read this book make sure you enjoy the phrase "the new science that I develop in this book" and its variations because you'll read a lot of it. The other thing you'll need to enjoy is sentence construction that goes, "You would think that it is A but it is really B."

After reading this stuff for a few pages, I asked, who edited this thing? And then I found that Wolfram himself had published it. (Hint to Wolfram -- when you self publish a book don't name the publishing company after yourself.) And this revealed the book for what it was. A self-aggrandizing collection of Wolfram's experiements with computers.

Given that knowlege, I plunged ahead hoping for some insights on self-organizing system, evolution, or any of the other areas Wolfram claimed to have revolutionized. Sadly there was nothing useful.

Wolfram didn't seem to realize that much of his work had already been discovered in other fields. He was unable to make meaningful links to the real world and his insufferable egotism finally wore me out.

Thanks goodness I didn't pay for it. I received it as a gift from a dear friend who saw it on my wish list, but am not willing to pay for the shelf space to keep it.

Rating:
Summary: Not original and not correct.
Review: Wolfram's book is a nightmare to read but here's the idea. Basic physical processes throughout space-time are not the fundamental level of reality but are themselves made up of more basic computational processes. The idea that the universe is at bottom some kind of computer or cellular automata with bits governed by rules isn't new, Ed Fredkin has made this claim before.

The problem with this idea is that pure bits (just 0's or 1's), can't be the fundamental level of reality since any bit is just a difference between two basic states, and always has to be implemented by these more basic states. Reality can't be made up of pure differences and that's all bits are. A bit is just "placeholder" or "pure difference structure" that needs to refer to something such as voltage in a computer.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best contributions to Modern Science
Review: This review is coming from a highschooler and for all of you pathetic dweebs out there who consider this wonderful book a piece of crap, you are ignorant losers. Just because you people can't think of wonderful ideas like SW, why criticize him. It is a true masterpiece of modern science. i recommend this book to the whole world. And leaving out the losers, enjoy this wonderful book.

Rating:
Summary: COMPUTATIONAL EQUVALENCE TRUTH
Review: Your Professors are stupid evil Liars, and fear the Computational Equvalence Truth. Humans are the only educated stupid animal and too dumb to even know it. I am the wisest human and offer $1,000.00 to the 1st to disprove my wisdom. Humans are educated stupid because they are really dumb and cannot even comprehend the Computational Equvalence creation code when it is explained to them.

Think of the Computational Equvalence as a 4-corner class-room representing the 4-corners of Earth, wherein, stupid educators teach erroneous 1-corner self aggrandizing singularity- that equates a deadly poison to Equvalent humanity.

Creation is a Equvalence Princple, & you are too dumb to know. To ignore it, indicts you evil. God lets little children starve, so no adults are worth saving.

YOU are the lowest form.
YOU can't procreate alone.
YOU destroyed the village.
YOU destroyed the family.
YOU destroyed childhood.
YOU destroyed naturalism.
YOU don't know the Truth.
YOU pitiful mindless fools,
YOU are educated stupid.
YOU worship inequivalent word.
YOU are your own poison.
YOU create your own hell.
YOU must seek Computational Equvalence.

Rating:
Summary: Charles Dickens: A Tale Too Slow
Review: After I finished the first one hundred and fifty pages of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, I was in dismay. Never having read a novel by Charles Dickens, I was expecting much, much more. The "great" Charles Dickens is praised around the world by critics and readers alike, but by the start of A Tale of Two Cities I didn't believe it. I was inclined to quit reading, but the realization of the novel being an assignment kept me going.
At the beginning, the pace of A Tale of Two Cities is monotonous. Dickens spends too much time in one scene; in one passage. Dickens lingers too long in one place. At times, Dickens overuses his marvelous ability to lag sentences on forever, and to create a full scale scene in just a paragraph, and he forgets about the reader. It is almost as if he gets caught up in his own writing, not caring for the reader. The wordiness of his sentences is his foe; yet his friend. When utilized correctly, the wordiness is more effective than any author that I have read, but when exploited in the wrong manner, excess is purely at work. Dickens chooses to ramble on in certain scenes, where, instead, he could get to the point and be finished. The excess of words and phrases hinders the reader's interest in the novel, and causes boredom and monotony during certain sections.
Dickens's wordiness has much do to with the plot development. The excess of Dickens's words contributes greatly to the slow, dull story of A Tale of Two Cities at the beginning. The length of his sentences, phrases, and paragraphs ties in with the boredom of the first one hundred and fifty pages. The extra length makes one simple sentence or scene, such as the descriptions and adventures of Monsieur the Marquis, seem not interesting at all. Many characters are introduced, and much information is received; but we still gain only minor information from these occurrences and characters. The plot needs to be rejuvenated; refreshed from its tedious ways. This weak development of plot, right at the beginning, is sometimes just long enough to give readers the chance to stop. Readers may very well lose interest and abandon all hope of A Tale of Two Cities because of the storyline.
Although the beginning plot of A Tale of Two Cities is lacking, in some ways the lacking beginning is made up in character development. Dickens is a master of characters. He presents the reader with certain characters who go through numerous changes and situations throughout the beginning and end of the novel. These experiences give change to and better the character in the end. "Idlest and most unpromising of men" (90), Sydney Carton, is a classic example. Carton "careless...and insolent" (81) overcomes the realization of his personality and stature from the beginning of the novel, and perpetrates the most selflessness and courageous act of our times; self sacrifice. Starting from the beginning, Dickens gives examples and experiences of Carton. This leads over to the novel's end when Carton eventually changes for the better, and commits his act of eternal bravery for Lucy Manette.
Dickens's third person point of view in the novel is one of the novel's greatest strengths. Being in third person, A Tale of Two Cities can jump from scene to scene; from city to city like the blink of an eye. Third person point of view helps to create the intimate relationships of the characters such as Lucy and Darnay, Lucy and Manette, and Carton and Lucy; while it, also, gives opportunity to develop the overall plot of the French Revolution mixed into each other. Third person in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities gives the reader an example of a relationship of people going through the hardships of the time (i.e. The French Revolution). It makes the story more personal and really hits home much harder. If Dickens had written the book in first person, there would have been no way for the book to skip back and forth between cities. There would have been no way for Dickens to go from the peaceful streets of Soho to the storming of the Bastille; from Mr. Jerry Cruncher "sitting on his stool in Fleetstreet" (159) to Saint Antoine and the Defarge's wine shop.
The second half of the novel brings great changes to the previous half. The plot and style of writing pick up drastically. The story line unifies, and plays out amazingly. Dickens ties all of his characters from the beginning, that seemed to have no relevance to the story at all, into the ending. The stirring and adventurous second half really brings the novel together, and the "greatness" lost in the first one hundred and fifty pages of the novel, Dickens regains in the end. Dickens's sense of plot is like no other. He leads the reader on from chapter to chapter in the second half, and the novel becomes exhilarating. Dickens is still a little wordy in the second half, but because of the plot acceleration his prolixity is not as noticeable. Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities is certainly written by a master artist. Although slow starting off, A Tale of Two Cities turns into an enriching masterpiece that should be read by anyone who can get his hands on it.

Rating:
Summary: Loquacious hubris, beauty, and insight
Review: If you read the many public reviews of Wolfram's tome, you will find the same bipolar response registered here. I think, however, that a more measured reaction is possible if one neither buys SW's overblown sense of his own importance nor becomes irate at a person whose premature mastery of physics clearly inhibited his emotional development.

The book is far too long. The essential claims presented in it are fairly easily stated, clear, and not as surprising as they are made out to be. Further, many individuals who are only lightly mentioned and not documented contributed to the insights and methods on display.

Because he loves himself so well and values others so lightly, SW seems both grasping and greedy. Therefore, the net impression about WS's character is that he suffers from the arrested development of an indulged and talented child: he wants all the intellectual toys, even those with the names of other owners. While Wordsworth thought a man's reach should exceed his grasp, he did not encourage dreamers to mistake desire for mastery.

While the writing is usually clear, it is often repetitive, cliched, and self congratulatory. Indeed, the presentation is often as exhaustive and exhausting as the computer methodology employed. A strict editor would have been helpful.

If the egotism had been curtailed, the scope restricted to what the author knew best, credit given where it was merited, and the whole reduced by 80%, this volume would have been a much more successful. The pictures and diagrams were, I thought, both beautiful and interesting, and the volume is very generous in their presentation. Further, I think the book makes a very important contribution in its use of exhaustive computation to explore logical spaces, expand the general application of Godel's incompleteness theorem, and by suggesting the theoretical limits of definitively decoding inductive or deductive phenomena.

In short, I think this massive volume is worth selective admiration, but less would have been much more.

Rating:
Summary: YOU MUST ALL BE BLIND.
Review: The Principle of Computational Equivalence suggests itself as the most primary induction possible. Debate its merits if you must. But if you concur with Dr. Wolfram that the PCE is fundamental, you are most likely correct.

The exciting notion is: if the PCE IS correct, it clearly marks the most profound effort of the human mind to comprehend the intracacies of complexity. I defy Wolfram's detractors to produce specific evidence to contradict the proposition of the Principle of Computational Equivalence. I personally witnessed Wolfram debate a quantum physicist about the merits of the PCE. The physicist had no idea how to metabolize Wolfram's theories. Wolfram's ideas are simply too general and too disruptive to the modern scientific paradigm.

But the physicist's repulsion can ultimately be understood. After all, Wolfram's ideas threaten the very notion of Science itself.

However, it is Science that must adapt to Wolfram - not the other way around.

And to the simpering, pathetic, myopic thinkers who dare scoff at this paradigm-shifting thesis - I challenge you to consider the implications that Wolfram's PCE might be correct. You will no doubt be terrified. In fact, you will most likely be incapable of even considering the PCE in a rational light.

THE SAD TRUTH IS THAT WOLFRAM'S IDEAS ARE FAR BEYOND THE VAST MAJORITY OF YOU. THOSE WHO REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE PROFOUND IMPLICATIONS OF THE PCE ARE NOT JUST PARASITES ON THE PREVAILING MEME OF REDUCTIONISM BUT POOR SCIENTISTS AND IRRATIONAL THINKERS.

AND YOUR DAFT CYNICISM COULDN'T BE MORE HARMFUL AND RIDICULOUS.

AND YOUR INEXACT EVALUATIONS COULDN'T BE MORE TRANSPARENTLY INADEQUATE.

AND YOU WILL FAIL AT SUPRESSING THESE IDEAS.

AND HOPEFULLY YOU WILL CHOKE.

Rating:
Summary: A New Kind of Science
Review: It was funny, but not "ha ha" funny.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant presentation format
Review: I've studied computer science for 10 years, read dozens of math books, and this is one of the first books that ever even attempted to get under it all, try to explain why, in terms that *anyone* could understand. And Wolfram succeeds.

There is a well known textbook by Donald Knuth called Concrete mathematics, which presents techniques to solve certain kinds of recursive equations. However, Knuth handily skirts the really tough fundamental issues, that have no closed form!

This is exactly the syndrome Wolfram describes: mathematicans are like lawyers in that they present only the problems that they can make money off.

However, immediately, Wolfram presents the really tough recursive equations like :
f[n] = f[n-f[n-1]] + f[n-f[n-2]]

The mathematicians wouldn't dare come near such a beast.

Contrary to previous reviewers, I find his writing style clear, straightforward, and organized. He writes in excited and energized manner, because some of the things he describes are truly incredible.

Bits and pieces of this have been explained years ago, but no one put it into such a coherent, unique graphical format!

Once at for all, he puts mathematics in its place: just another incomplete explation of a discrete universe. And its discrete all the way down!

People who have problems with this book think they know it all...but the reality is that with our current tools can barely explain the basics.

How many people can answer the question "how can a simple DNA form something as complex as a human being?" This book explains that, again so that anyone can understand it.

The real answer to the universe is not in a mathematical formula, but a computer program.

This book is a gem.