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

Post by Stupulous » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:13 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #269

Barrera wrote: post #213

> Something remarkable has happened these past two years. For 45 years I’ve devoted myself to building a taller and taller tower of science and technology—which along the way has delivered many outputs of which I’m quite proud. But starting in 2020 with the unexpected breakthroughs of our Wolfram Physics Project we’ve jumped to a whole new level. And suddenly—yes, building on our multi-decade tower—it seems as if we’…

I'd say that gradient descent and deep learning have made obsolete whatever cellular automata stuff Wolfram has come up with. Neural nets can approximate any function. Cellular automata has a much more limited range that only includes the generation of some interesting pictures and not much else of interest, IMHO. To be charitable, if he had some way to mathematically slide between and combine networks of cellular au…

Post by copperx » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:29 PM UTC

motoboi wrote: post #190

underdeserver wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem with Wolfram is that every time I hear him talk or read him, I end up spending 15-20 minutes and come out the other end confused. I studied physics in my undergrad, I have a graduate degree in math, I've shipped large features on planet-scale systems. I'm no genius, certainly nowhere close to Dr. Wolfram, but I don't think I'm far from your average HN reader in reading comprehension ability. I've read 35 p…

He writes in a very marketing-informed way. He clearly point to (his) previous work, clearly and repeatedly remembers the reader how amazing is the things he is trying to do, and shameless link (both in text and via hiperlinks) to his own enterprises and current initiatives. I suppose this is some kind of mental template he uses when writing (think about someone writing a paper: the forma and hidden rules, the necess…

Post by roelschroeven » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:35 PM UTC

pasadenasunset wrote: post #77

vasco wrote: post #7

I'm not knowledgeable enough to have an opinion on the physics project, but I find it interesting how polarized HN is about it. For some people it's a whole new world that will lead to new findings, for others it seems like they compare it to them having invented a new language and acting busy "translating" everything that was already discovered to this new language and being surprised they can. Funny how even mathem…

You raise an interesting issue. If we can accept that substantive scientists vary in their involvement in self-marketing, does the degree one engages in popular self-marketing affect the kind of attention one receives? And the validity of criticism within that attention set? Related to your point, if Wolfram hadn’t had the history he did, would Hacker News general suspicious reaction still be present? And would his s…

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:38 PM UTC

DantesKite wrote: post #73

Man these are some low-quality comments. You’d think Wolfram was torturing gerbils or something. I don’t mind criticisms of my favorite thinkers. I enjoy watching someone being taken to task in the battle of ideas so to speak, but apparently something about Wolfram just rubs people the wrong way, because they seem to lose the ability to make cogent arguments after reading him. As a simple example of what a healthy di…

Post by narratorr » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:39 PM UTC

Barrera wrote: post #213

> Something remarkable has happened these past two years. For 45 years I’ve devoted myself to building a taller and taller tower of science and technology—which along the way has delivered many outputs of which I’m quite proud. But starting in 2020 with the unexpected breakthroughs of our Wolfram Physics Project we’ve jumped to a whole new level. And suddenly—yes, building on our multi-decade tower—it seems as if we’…