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Who Was Ramanujan?

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81–90 of 130 posts

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#81

The (sadly all too predictable) comments about Wolfram's self-promotion and product placement give me an idea. Someone should create a blog called "Wolfram minus Wolfram" (in the vein of the excellent "Garfield minus Garfield") which exists solely to republish Wolfram's (often very interesting) writings, minus the references to his own products and his own past achievements. I think it would be popular.

Why sadly? It's good that people vigorously and relentlessly call out Wolfram on the same self-aggrandizing, self-promotional shit that he spews into every article. Even better that it helps highlight the ways he degrades the quality of his own (otherwise good and useful) writing by pumping it in, just as in the Ada Lovelace article too.

Personally, as long as Wolfram keeps doing this, I always hope to see a giant wall of comments deriding him for it every single time it gets shared here or anywhere. It's uplifting to see such a large number of community members recognize his bullshit and call it out. That's a good thing!

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#82

Last year, I had a talk with Stephen Wolfram, he said that, for him, the most important secret helping him solve problems is "some version of confidence or arrogant". That make him never fear any difficulty, but this arrogant inevitably behave in some other aspects of his life, and affect people's impression of him. Then, his writing style never bother me again.

Why doesn't that bother you? It reminds me a little of the giant middle finger that Bezos recently gave to his workers via his letter to shareholders, in which he effectively said that he knew the workplaces he fostered at Amazon were unhealthy, toxic, soul-crushing graveyards, but basically that he didn't plan on changing it and didn't give a shit if people didn't like it or even if it was demonstrably unhealthy for them.

Saying "I've become successful" (or in Wolfram's case, very marginally successful) "because of some arrogance" is not some redeeming, insightful virtue. In fact, in many ways the person is saying, "I took the lazy way of using my laurels and status to treat others badly and act entitled to my asshole tendencies."

Instead of working hard to succeed with class, Wolfram, like so many other tedious and unremarkable people that pinch up some minor bit of fame for a while, is just excusing his own laziness.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#83

A very nice article. Personally I'm not bothered by the "self-promotion" others perceive in Wolfram's posts. The criticism in the comments here are all very repetitive and tiresome. I presume many read anything written by Wolfram with the hope of finding something they can point out as self-promotion ;)

> I presume many read anything written by Wolfram with the hope of finding something they can point out as self-promotion ;)

Do not presume. It's the first time I've read anything by Wolfram. And before I read it, I had a positive opinion of him (love Mathematica and find Alpha to be occasionally rather useful).

The ratio of self-promotion to content in the article bothered me enough to

1. make a top-level comment here about it (I rarely comment on HN); and

2. decide not to read anything by Wolfram again. Because the content is both interesting and well-written, but filtering out all the self-aggrandizing BS to get to the content is sufficiently annoying for me to make the result not worth the bother.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#85
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Republishing? I suspect you would immediately find yourself in boiling water with Wolfram's lawyers. See this nice story: http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/

Subtitled A Rare Blend of Monster Raving Egomania and Utter Batshit Insanity

Before opening the link I thought you were joking.

Surprisingly you weren't.

That's actually the subtitle.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#86
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...Eton and Oxford, which happens to be where I went" I prefer to be charitable and assume that he wrote this for the purposes of disclosure and to qualify his knowledge of those institutions. I don't think he was drawing a comparison between himself and Ramanujan. Yes - Wolfram has a tendency for self-promotion, and this can be a bit tiresome. But, like others who have commented here, I find the seemingly obligator…

Agree. I read the article from another source, and came to HN expecting that very criticism. Its so tiresome. They didn't even consider that this article by Wolfram took a rare effort to go into lot of Math of Ramanujan. And the core insight of experimental (Ramanujan style) Math vs formal proof oriented (Hardy style) Math and its parallels i.e. the former approach is definitely enabled by Wolfram Mathematica, is ver…

Yes I read it at first, and enjoyed the article in full before seeing these comments too. Reading through some of the points in the negative, I am not sure I get it. He remarks he went to a school mentioned in the article. So? And he uses Mathematica in the article to highlight some math points. Does anyone expect him to ignore the software and company he founded, and do manual calcs, or better yet, use an iPython notebook (which took the best of Mathematics - the notebook), so as to avoid any chance of 'Oh, he's self promoting again.' I like Mathematica, I enjoy Stephen Wolfram's articles, and I can easily overlook the points that are always mentioned. I look forward to the movie even more after having read Stephen Wolfram's article. OT: I was browsing a CNC manual written in Bahasa Indonesia just 2 days ago, when I saw Wolfram Carbide, and did a double take. Wolfram means tungsten in Indonesian!

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#87

The (sadly all too predictable) comments about Wolfram's self-promotion and product placement give me an idea. Someone should create a blog called "Wolfram minus Wolfram" (in the vein of the excellent "Garfield minus Garfield") which exists solely to republish Wolfram's (often very interesting) writings, minus the references to his own products and his own past achievements. I think it would be popular.

i'm sure the criticism has him crying all the way to the bank.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...Eton and Oxford, which happens to be where I went" I prefer to be charitable and assume that he wrote this for the purposes of disclosure and to qualify his knowledge of those institutions. I don't think he was drawing a comparison between himself and Ramanujan. Yes - Wolfram has a tendency for self-promotion, and this can be a bit tiresome. But, like others who have commented here, I find the seemingly obligator…

It also makes the article more personal, which is something that generally improves communication.

I can only imagine some of the folks reaction to the old storytellers who constantly interjected their personal experience (and sometime the audiences) into the old stories. It honestly shows how the teller relates to the subject. If I had a mathematical tool or language, I would use it to show the work in a story about a mathematician.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#89
post #86
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I read the article from another source, and came to HN expecting that very criticism. Its so tiresome. They didn't even consider that this article by Wolfram took a rare effort to go into lot of Math of Ramanujan. And the core insight of experimental (Ramanujan style) Math vs formal proof oriented (Hardy style) Math and its parallels i.e. the former approach is definitely enabled by Wolfram Mathematica, is ver…

Yes I read it at first, and enjoyed the article in full before seeing these comments too. Reading through some of the points in the negative, I am not sure I get it. He remarks he went to a school mentioned in the article. So? And he uses Mathematica in the article to highlight some math points. Does anyone expect him to ignore the software and company he founded, and do manual calcs, or better yet, use an iPython no…

The name Wolfram (for the metal) is of German origin, IIRC. Indonesia having been a Dutch colony probably got it from the Dutch language, if I might hazard a guess.

Re: Who Was Ramanujan?

#90
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is hard to understand, indeed. Wolfram is clearly extremely accomplished by all standards. We all know this . Why in the world does he pump all his written work with insufferable self-promotion? Anyone in a position to make good use of Mathematica has heard of it. I haven't met anyone who doesn't know about WolframAlpha, and I've taught mathematics to high-schoolers. Moreover, it should be obvious to Wolfram that…

"Narcissistic personality disorder" is a real thing, and like any other neurosis is not mutually exclusive with real ability or accomplishment.

You shouldn't have been down-voted, this is about the most truth I've read in this thread. Wolfram is a Narcissistic plain and simple, that's why he can't stop promoting himself, he needs his fix, he needs people to worship him. That he actually is brilliant just makes it sad.
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