We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute • Hacker News Board

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#311

Post by dudeinjapan » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #208

dudeinjapan wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say the same things about string theory. One could envision an alternate timeline where cellular automata is the darling of academia, and Dr. Steven Ramwolf is the lone iconoclast raving about D-branes.

People do say the exact same thing about string theory. They challenge it to show that it’s science. There may be some experiments in the not too distant future; we’ll see what happens. At least string theory makes some predictions and is relativistically correct.

String theory has been around since the late 1960s. To date, has it made a single prediction which was later experimentally found to true? (i.e. aside from "predicting" the existence of particles which were already known to physics)

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#312

Post by pretendscholar » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 5:51 PM UTC

bmc7505 wrote: post #48

It must feel terribly vindicating to be shunned by IAS for pursuing unpopular research, ridiculed by your intellectual heroes for lacking social graces, branded a charlatan your entire professional career by the academic establishment despite running a profitable company for over three decades, then funding a rival institute to pursue the original research you had set out to do 40 years ago.

>branded a charlatan your entire professional career by the academic establishment despite running a profitable company for over three decades

Those two features are not mutually exclusive.

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#313

Post by pretendscholar » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:00 PM UTC

estevaoam wrote: post #82

I think Law of Jante summarizes the 'zeitgeist' of HN comments towards this man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante The goal should be always to understand and discuss ideas, despite egos. As hard that can be practically, anything else is unproductive and not worth persuing. His thoughts and theories are something to not ignore, but to follow with the same skepticism as any revolutionary claim should be. That…

>Law of Jante summarizes the 'zeitgeist'

Why do you feel the need to dress up your comment to be something more than "you guys are just jealous."? Most of the comments criticizing Wolfram in this comment section discuss A New Kind of Science, cellular automata and hypergraphs but yours has no reference to any of the ideas discussed. Your post fluffs Wolfram to an absurd degree without ever actually providing any specific idea that is revolutionary or great.

>I doubt anyone here would dare to try to create something as complicated as it's Wolfram service.

Complicated is not a virtue.

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#314

Post by dudeinjapan » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:01 PM UTC

dudeinjapan wrote: post #311

leephillips wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People do say the exact same thing about string theory. They challenge it to show that it’s science. There may be some experiments in the not too distant future; we’ll see what happens. At least string theory makes some predictions and is relativistically correct.

String theory has been around since the late 1960s. To date, has it made a single prediction which was later experimentally found to true? (i.e. aside from "predicting" the existence of particles which were already known to physics)

(Edit: given the large umbrella it encompasses, I suppose you could consider things like AdS/CFT correspondence, where a direct "domain transform" with quantum field theory is proven, to be a useful tool that in some instances furthered QFT. But such results are scant given the enormous amount of brainpower allocated to string theory as a whole.)

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#315

Post by kkfx » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:18 PM UTC

I like to a certain extent and admire Mathematica and Alpha (I dislike their closeness) BUT one thing I fear are "centered universities", by their own name they MUST be universal so public and open, not backed by anyone in particular. That's remain the same for anything alike.

BTW for those who read French I suggest: Libérez votre cerveau! by Idriss Aberkane on teaching and developing knowledge.

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#316

Post by disqard » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:24 PM UTC

michael_j_ward wrote: post #306

j7ake wrote: post #295

What’s with the hate? Let the man do his research. It’s not tax payer dollars. The number of tax-dollar paid academics who are doing research as “useless” as his (useless defined by the haters) vastly outnumber the ones at Wolfram.

Alan Kay has part of the answer in this talk [0] where elucidates the errors taken by formal Comp Sci education. He claims there was a battle in the university between testable curriculum centered around Algorithms and builder curriculums based around hardware and distributed systems, and says it's a shame that algorithms won out. [0] Alan Kay : July 2007 : A Conversation with CMU Faculty & Students https://www.youtu…

Thank you for sharing that link!

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#317

Post by disqard » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:28 PM UTC

comboy wrote: post #86

jillesvangurp wrote: post #64

I have the man's magnum opus on my shelf. Cheeky graduation present from a friend. Never managed to enjoy reading it unfortunately but it makes for a great paper weight. I also occasionally use it as a laptop stand. It's big and heavy and oddly convenient for that. This press release is a bit long, incoherent, and manages an impressive number of buzzwords that I don't normally associate with cellular automata. Can so…

I recommend his Lex Friedman interviews on youtube. I've been reading and listening to Wolfram for some time and Lex manages to somehow get the most out of him. The ego is annoying and personally I don't think that New Kind of Science is very high in information density (may be my ignorance), but Wolfram definitely has many many great insights to offer if you are able to just ignore the remarks about him being the fi…

I hadn't heard of the Intellectual Dark Web until just now. Thank you!

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#318

Post by bmc7505 » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:30 PM UTC

pretendscholar wrote: post #312

bmc7505 wrote: post #48

It must feel terribly vindicating to be shunned by IAS for pursuing unpopular research, ridiculed by your intellectual heroes for lacking social graces, branded a charlatan your entire professional career by the academic establishment despite running a profitable company for over three decades, then funding a rival institute to pursue the original research you had set out to do 40 years ago.

>branded a charlatan your entire professional career by the academic establishment despite running a profitable company for over three decades Those two features are not mutually exclusive.

They are if your customers are mostly academic researchers.

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#319

Post by codethief » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

xhkkffbf wrote: post #256

codethief wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current replication crisis in psychology and other fields would suggest that it's actually quite bad at it. Not saying that you're necessarily wrong but be careful not to compare apples to oranges: There is a huge difference between fields like math & physics on the one hand and fields like psychology on the other.

Definitely, but both use peer review.

But peer review works completely differently in math & physics than in psychology. In math and (theoretical) physics, practically all results (claims) can in principle be reproduced (tested) by other people. Sure reviewers are usually short on time and won't verify every single detail but at the same time – being experts in their fields – they tend to be extremely good at distinguishing the "easy" arguments from more intricate ones and can usually come up with rough arguments as to why (or why not) a given new result makes sense in light of existing results & literature.

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#320

Post by moonchild » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 6:36 PM UTC

SantalBlush wrote: post #228

ace2358 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I studied maths and physics at uni. My recollection is that science is littered with things named after specific people when in actual fact multiple people put in hours and hours of work to making these discoveries. But only one name gets slapped on it. ‘Maxwell’s’ equations are a great example. Calculus is also a prime example (d/dx f(x) vs f’(x)). I’m pretty sure Gauss was a fantastic mathematician, but too…

The saying goes that a mathematical theorem is named after the first person to discover it after Gauss.

I heard that said of euler.