81–90 of 95 posts
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.
What will you find at Bletchley Park?
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Every single piece Wolfram writes, without exception, is arrogant content marketing blogspam. Even his books. Sometimes very clever, sometimes interesting (though I'd find him 1,000x more interesting if say 1 article in 10 made no mention of how clever he and Mathematica are); always arrogant and self-promotional. This piece is no exception - because it's Turing I made exception to my usual personal hard-ban on readi…
It’s definitely self-promotion, but I don’t see why this is a bad thing. He’s clearly spent a large portion of his life developing a programming and computing environment to handle mathematics (and other things). What is he supposed to do? Write a blog post about something he's interested in, without using the programming language he has intentionally developed to deal with the things he’s interested in?
When in Rome, do what the Romans do. Given his previous career as a particle physicist I doubt he has any issues with it
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Wouldn't a truly non-quantized field or dimension falsify this idea? AFAIK there are none known yet, though there are some (like time) where we don't know.
Yes. But it's hard to prove something is non-quantized. All you can do is measure precisely and say that the quantization must be smaller than X.
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it's an openly debated topic, ranging from a simple accident to bullying by the state and other conspiracy theories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Death
"Bullying by the state" is not a conspiracy theory. He was actually, objectively punished by the state in a manner that is considered cruel and inhumane by modern standards.
> it's an openly debated topic, ranging from a simple accident to bullying by the state and conspiracy theories.
> it's an openly debated topic, ranging from a simple accident to bullying by the state or other kinds of conspiracy theories.
How would you say it?
"My own guess is that it was not suicide, but that’s a different story." What was this about, I wonder?
Turing was gay and knew a lot of government secrets at a time when gay people were considered security risks and likely Communist sympathizers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_scare I’m not an expert on the topic at all, but the story always seemed fishy to me. Who kills themself by injecting an apple with poison and eating an apple? (The JFK story also seems fishy to me because I don’t get why in the world…
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The Science museum is a sad picture of extreme neglect and bad ideas these days. Just about every museum I've been to in the UK does it better, whether regional ones or national, even the smaller ones. Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, Bletcheley, Royal Arms Leeds, etc. Bletcheley has a far, far better discussion about Turing and his influence, and far better displays of the Code Breaking work, along with th…
I agree that many parts of the Science Museum now look neglected and shabby, but the museum does have some truly exceptional exhibits - an original prototype Analytical Engine, a working replica Difference Engine, an Apple I, a Cray 1a, a Daniels Space Traveler and much more besides. I have to admit a deep sadness at the recent closure of the old Wellcome collection on the fourth and fifth floor; this gallery had bee…
I imagine budget for proper replacement displays, modelling, maintenance and restoration is far harder than it used to be... Some of those exceptionals, both known and lesser known in storage, deserve far more than they now often get.
> recent closure of the old Wellcome collection ... powerfully evocative atmosphere
Ugh. That hard to define atmosphere is the part that seems to being modernised away, and a good part of what I increasingly miss. Whether it's too many "clean" experiences with acres of empty space and a few exhibits spotted around, or the changing nature of the interactive models I'm not sure. Certainly I think a lot of the screen based stuff would be better as interactive experience on the website than in the building, though when it's additional to other means, it can often work.
I wish a lot more of how they managed was additive rather than replacing great swathes with a whole new design. Most, though not all, of the new plastic and electronic approaches seem far poorer in terms of lasting, and often less engaging.
The parts I often enjoy most are the esoteric, failed but promising ideas, and the day-to-day that we forgot. So I like the odd little packed displays of thirties electricals, analogue computers,
> By the passage of time, it had become a sort of meta-museum
This is one unexplored area they could do so much more with. Beautiful teak and brass cabinets with a perfect cutaway replica of a steam turbine or whole power station might not be the modern way to do it, but they were lasting and beautiful of themselves. 8 or 10 year old me couldn't leave the place until I'd turned every handle. :)
I'm sure there's scope for a huge, and fascinating self-referential meta-museum of presenting museum science, model making and all the other back room activities through the ages. Include some of the long forgotten exhibits that included the scent of machine oil, carbon electrical brushes, the metallic bite of a little ozone and sprinkling of burnt dust - like all machinery used to come with. Oh, and a selection of those ancient models the kids can try, and fail, to break by winding too fast.
Maybe we need a museum of the museum - maybe that's V&A's territory. :)
I just hope that now Manchester Science and Industry are under the same group it brings the London Science Museum up, rather than Manchester down.
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Every single piece Wolfram writes, without exception, is arrogant content marketing blogspam. Even his books. Sometimes very clever, sometimes interesting (though I'd find him 1,000x more interesting if say 1 article in 10 made no mention of how clever he and Mathematica are); always arrogant and self-promotional. This piece is no exception - because it's Turing I made exception to my usual personal hard-ban on readi…
That last sentence made me laugh, and it does ring true. Here's how I imagine he would answer that question: https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2015/12/what-is-spacetime-re... > So, OK, if I mounted a project to try to find the fundamental theory of physics, what would I actually do? It’s a complex project, that’ll need not just me, but a diverse team of talented other people too. It's illuminating that, in order to exp…
"feels uncharitable and too reductive"
I'm old enough to remember when the law suits, a flagged throwaway comment briefly mentions, were going - my recollection is of a lengthy effort to deprive the other developers of the fruits of Mathematica labours. That colours later impressions. Charitable isn't necessarily always the right take...
Still, that's an aside here, and perhaps I was too sweeping. It's difficult as there are rare times, like this one, where the topic is fascinating and well explored, and the self-promotion is, for Stephen, light touch. It's well known he was a child prodigy, so I'm sure many people and events had part in boosting his ego and innate sense of exceptionalism, resulting in the personality we know. So I don't entirely blame him for it...
"arrogant self-promotion of the highest order, by one of the most productive and insightful thinkers of our time."
You're not wrong. He'd probably be well served employing someone to bring a lighter touch, via an editing pass to all output. I end up not finishing articles he writes on topics I might otherwise find hugely interesting. Solely because too much prose is spent telling me he's brilliant, rather than simply showing it. For me at least, the style of delivery has cost the message - as I stopped regularly reading him as far too frustrating, ages ago. :)
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> This is wrong. You would have to additionally prove that the other thing is the only alternative. A CA theory of physics would just be math, right? Wouldn't it end up being isomorphic with some mathematical representation, albeit perhaps easier to understand or evaluate in its CA form?
Currently, we only know continuous mathematical models of physics. A CA model would be discrete, so not isomorphic to anything we know.
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I don't think your criticism is very accurate here. Wolfram Language code doesn't show up until the second half of the (very long) article, in the sections where he is explaining how to represent the mathematical concepts in the Wolfram Language. In fact, in several cases he mentions the traditional mathematical notation and follows it with the Wolfram Language notation. What's strange or arrogant or egotistical abou…
Every single piece Wolfram writes, without exception, is arrogant content marketing blogspam. Even his books. Sometimes very clever, sometimes interesting (though I'd find him 1,000x more interesting if say 1 article in 10 made no mention of how clever he and Mathematica are); always arrogant and self-promotional. This piece is no exception - because it's Turing I made exception to my usual personal hard-ban on readi…
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.