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A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

blog.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

#2

Post by codezero »

When I was studying quantum mechanics, I quite often went to this book for a very different perspective on a lot of the details. I found it to be exceptionally well written and had a seemingly different approach from the typical college or graduate level quantum mechanics textbook. We had a copy in one of our department libraries, if you can get your hands on one, I recommend giving it a read when you want a new perspective on an academic quantum mechanics concept :)

I am far enough away from that part of my life, I apologize for not being able to give a more detailed and convincing testimonial for this book.

Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

#3

Post by masteranza »

codezero wrote: post #2

When I was studying quantum mechanics, I quite often went to this book for a very different perspective on a lot of the details. I found it to be exceptionally well written and had a seemingly different approach from the typical college or graduate level quantum mechanics textbook. We had a copy in one of our department libraries, if you can get your hands on one, I recommend giving it a read when you want a new pers…

Indeed. Not only can one get a glance of a unique perspective of one of the founding fathers, but also a lot of important facts not covered in many other textbooks. One of such facts are the low heat capacities of atoms that do not fit any classical theory. This fact alone is able to kill most of the "alternative" interpretations of quantum mechanics that the popular media sell-off as "science" nowadays.

Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

#6

Post by api »

acangiano wrote: post #4

My unpopular opinion is that Stephen Wolfram doesn't get enough credit. Yes, he has a large ego, but he remains one of the most remarkable people in science today.

I agree. It's a tough one because his ego is so huge he's often accused of taking credit for other peoples' work. My impression from reading through A New Kind of Science is that it wasn't some plot by him to take credit for the whole of CA research but that his ego just kind of caused him to write in such a way as to give that impression.

All personalities aside, I feel like the core thesis of this and other books on CAs, fractals, computational physics, etc., are sort of like the edges of some higher scientific theory that we don't yet understand. The entire universe looks like a big fractal with structures repeating with some variation at different scales, and we don't "get" this beyond hand-wavey pure speculation that starts sounding like New Age babble. I wonder if we're just at the edge of being smart enough to grasp this higher order of understanding and if we did we'd have among other things a unified theory of physics. It makes me think of what chimpanzees might feel when we try to teach them language and basic mathematics. They can almost get it.

Maybe there are beings out there that "get it" and they're out there doing things that to us would be indistinguishable from magic.

Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

#7

Post by scottlocklin »

acangiano wrote: post #4

My unpopular opinion is that Stephen Wolfram doesn't get enough credit. Yes, he has a large ego, but he remains one of the most remarkable people in science today.

Can you state in a few lines what you think he should get more credit for?

He's an interesting guy, a good businessman, and I enjoy reading his anecdotes, but I kinda figure he gets about the right amount of credit for his achievements.

If you mean "new kind of science" for example -I think he got about what he deserved on that.

Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

#8

Post by tlb »

scottlocklin wrote: post #7
acangiano wrote: post #4

My unpopular opinion is that Stephen Wolfram doesn't get enough credit. Yes, he has a large ego, but he remains one of the most remarkable people in science today.

Can you state in a few lines what you think he should get more credit for? He's an interesting guy, a good businessman, and I enjoy reading his anecdotes, but I kinda figure he gets about the right amount of credit for his achievements. If you mean "new kind of science" for example -I think he got about what he deserved on that.

You shouldn't judge the value of conjectures until you know whether they're true or not. Right now, we have no computable model for physics. NKS conjectures that some particular types of CA could compute our universe. If this turns out to be true, it'll be huge.

Re: A book from Alan Turing and a mysterious piece of paper

#9

Post by groundlogic »

If you're in London and in any way interested in computing history, you owe it to yourself to visit Bletchley Park. It's a fantastic day visit from London. (About an hour away or so via the railway, as I remember it.)

There's a direct train from Paddington, iirc. UK people please fill in.

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