Wolfram, Stephen

▪ 2003

      With the publication in 2002 of his 1,263-page self-published book A New Kind of Science, British-born physicist Stephen Wolfram attempted to establish just what the title suggested. After having conducted nearly 10 years of tireless research in seclusion, Wolfram unleashed on the scientific community his conclusions about the inadequacy of math-based science as a means of unlocking the secrets of the natural world. Instead, Wolfram posited that the complexity of nature could be better understood through the study of models developed by computer programs that executed simple instructions repeatedly on a grid of black and white squares and thus created intricate patterns that replicated the way natural processes progress. Wolfram believed that this approach—known as cellular automata—could be applied to all sorts of scientific endeavours, such as predicting the weather, growing artificial organisms, explaining stock market behaviour, and understanding the very origins of the universe. Nature, Wolfram argued, operates like a computer.

      Wolfram was born on Aug. 29, 1959, in London. His father was a novelist, and his mother taught philosophy at the University of Oxford. Educated at Eton, he published his first scientific paper at 15. Later he studied at Oxford and the California Institute of Technology, where he earned a Ph.D. (1979) in theoretical physics. In 1981 he became the youngest recipient of a MacArthur Prize fellowship, and later that year he set his sights on an explanation of the complexity of nature. Through the 1980s Wolfram published a series of celebrated papers on what he dubbed “complex systems research.” He held positions at the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton University and the University of Illinois.

      A brash—some would say arrogant—proponent of his own work, Wolfram soon grew unhappy with the way that his peers tried to build upon his findings. Determined to articulate his theories in full, Wolfram dropped out of academia and created his own firm, Wolfram Research Inc., which sold a computer program Wolfram had devised that allowed anyone to perform complex mathematics on a personal computer. Software sales made Wolfram a millionaire and thereby allowed him to finance his own research and, eventually, the publication of his book. Beginning in 1991, Wolfram began to divide his time between the management of his company and his attempt to devise his new science.

      Reaction to A New Kind of Science was, understandably, mixed. From a purely scientific standpoint, observers' responses covered a wide range. Some already engaged in the field of cellular automata welcomed the spotlight the book created and Wolfram's new body of evidence; others suggested that much of what Wolfram offered in his book was nothing new. The perception of Wolfram among some academics as a corporate sellout and a self-promoter surely affected the reception of the new work. In any event, it appeared that the full impact of Wolfram's radical ideas would not be realized for years.

Anthony G. Craine

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