A Theory of Everything? Stephen Wolfram's Rule 110 May Change How We Understand the World

ABC News.com ^ | May 28, 2002 | Michael S. Malone

[John H K]

To my surprise I did searches on the title of the book, and on Wolfram, and didn't find anything posted on this on FR, considering it's a known genius claiming to have figured out the entire universe.

I'm actually thinking of ordering the book.. shockingly cheap at $44. I was skeptical but read a lot of the sample pages at Wolfram's site.

The FR God-squadders are gonna hate this even more than evolution; in a Wired interview (links to media about the book on Wolfram's site) Wolfram says that he thinks the program for the entire Universe will end up being about 5 lines of code.

[IronJack]

Wolfram says that he thinks the program for the entire Universe will end up being about 5 lines of code.

When he gets it down to one, he can call it God.

And even then, he won't have invented it, just discovered it.

[Shermy]

It's simpler than that. The answer is "42"

[Raymond Hendrix]

bump

[FairWitness]

And even then, he won't have invented it, just discovered it.

Just so.

[billbears]

Better ask the mice

So he's figured out the whole kit and kaboodle has he? And it only took him ten years? Hate to break it to him, but a lot of folks already knew the answer and it didn't involve sitting in their attics for 10 years looking at tiles

[BigBobber]

You might check out the reader reviews at Amazon before shelling out your dough. Most reviewers familiar with cellular automata said there was little new in the book.

[Physicist]

To my surprise I did searches on the title of the book, and on Wolfram, and didn't find anything posted on this on FR, considering it's a known genius claiming to have figured out the entire universe.

You should also search in "General Interest":

Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" Now Available!

[goldstategop]

Its a big tome. LOL. Only Steven Gould's magnum opus is bigger.

[FairWitness]

Hate to break it to him, but a lot of folks already knew the answer and it didn't involve sitting in their attics for 10 years looking at tiles

If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is (too good to be true).

[Physicist]

Most reviewers familiar with cellular automata said there was little new in the book.

I've been wondering that. Didn't John Horton Conway make a similar series of claims for automata?

[onedoug]

Seems like another take on fractals.

[callisto]

Very good find! Order to Chaos and back to Order again. I can't wait to read this. If it's as appealing as it appears to be I may have to add it to my list of treasured books.

[Physicist]

Seems like another take on fractals.

It doesn't seem like that to me. Cellular automata are discrete systems with a quantized length scale (the cell size). By nature they can't exhibit the scale invariance that is the hallmark of a fractal.

[mc5cents]

Wolfram says that he thinks the program for the entire Universe will end up being about 5 lines of code.

When he gets it down to one, he can call it God.

And even then, he won't have invented it, just discovered it.

Once again IronJack, you said it so well. All I could add is: Amen.

But, I was thinking,(yea, that may have been what you smelled) should we ask Wolfram if his rule 110 has taken into consideration Catch 22.

[Billy_bob_bob]

I ordered my copy last week. I'm hoping to understand enough of it to be able to apply some of the concepts to my hobby of creating computer assisted music compositions. It's not something I plan on spending every waking hour on, but something that I hope will provide a couple of useful tools or novel approaches to generating music.

[berned]

Science-types are almost all alike. Explain the universe any possible way, except for the obvious one. God.

A theory that the Universe was created by a group of muskrats playing rock-paper-scissors is preferable to being humble enough to admit the existence of a Creator. Because that would mean the scientists aren't the smartest thing in the universe. And that would, evidently, take all the fun out of being a science-creep.

[LibWhacker]

Do you mind me asking, how much science have you had?

[Salgak]

You're on the wrong track. Religion and Science ask DIFFERENT questions. Religion, at its' core, asks the question "Why ???". Science, OTOH, is concerned with the question "How ???". . . .

[Physicist]

Science-types are almost all alike. Explain the universe any possible way, except for the obvious one. God.

If God were truly obvious, it wouldn't have been necessary for mankind to invent so very many of them.