Timeline for What are the popular science books that inspire TCS?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 20, 2013 at 0:17 | comment | added | JRN | In my previous comment, I should have said "that did not repeat thrice." @VijayD, I don't want to edit the answer because I don't want to bump it up. I think the comment is enough. More details can be found here. I also used to do circuit design (computer arithmetic) but now my interests are elsewhere. | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 17:08 | comment | added | vzn | see also recent economist profile, wolfram. also wikipedia has good overview | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 16:17 | comment | added | Vijay D | @JoelReyesNoche. That's a fantastic story! Please, please add it to your answer. As Masters student my background was circuit design, but working on a hybrid systems problem led me to the Thue-Morse sequence, so I did my Masters project on automata theory. | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 9:31 | comment | added | JRN | Thanks for the comments. @VijayD, as an electrical engineer, I became interested in randomness. I discovered an infinite binary sequence that did not repeat, and it was through NKS that I discovered that it was already known as the Thue-Morse sequence. Thus, NKS led me to the field of study known as combinatorics on words. | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 3:16 | comment | added | Jeffε | I also think this is a perfectly fine answer. (I'm not one of the downvoters.) But just as with GEB, don't mistake the inspiration for real substance. | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 1:51 | comment | added | Marcos Villagra | @JoelReyesNoche, my original comment was simply to let you know what's the stance of most CS researches about that book in particular. VijayD put it very well, if that is what inspired you that's fine, and that makes it a valid answer. I didn't downvoted the question, but I won't upvote it neither. | |
| Sep 19, 2013 at 0:27 | comment | added | Vijay D | @JoelReyesNoche, you have my sympathies. I would imagine that the downvotes (not me) are targeted at Wolfram and not you. It may help if you added in your answer that you are not a computer scientist. I am still curious though: What did the book inspire you to do, or think of, or work on? | |
| Sep 18, 2013 at 23:28 | comment | added | JRN | @VijayD, thanks for the kind words. I understand the downvotes and I initially wanted to delete the answer when I realized that it might cause controversy. I'm keeping the answer up because I think it would be rude to the many who have commented if I deleted it. I don't want to "fan the flames" so I will refrain from making additional comments about the book. Thanks again. | |
| Sep 18, 2013 at 23:20 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by JRN | ||
| Sep 18, 2013 at 22:04 | comment | added | Vijay D | I think this is a perfectly fine answer. If Joel says it inspired him, then there is no questioning that. Joel, I think you could also add a bit more of a retrospective, if you can, of how you think of the book once you became a scientist. | |
| Sep 17, 2013 at 0:39 | comment | added | Jeffε | imho wolframs research is very original, pioneering, worthwhile, and influential — I feel exactly the opposite, on all counts. Wolfram takes credit for, ignores, and or dismisses other people's prior work; he emphasizes trivial points while missing larger ones; his generalizations to traditional science are quickly dismissed as obviously wrong. His book should have been entitled A New (Kind of) Science. | |
| Sep 17, 2013 at 0:20 | comment | added | JRN | @JoshuaGrochow, thanks for the link and the suggestion. | |
| Sep 17, 2013 at 0:19 | history | edited | JRN | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Sep 16, 2013 at 19:14 | comment | added | Joshua Grochow | I would leave the answer up, as if the book inspires people to learn more about TCS etc. then I think that counts, whether or not its controversial (by analogy, think about how many inspiring yet controversial books there are about evolution...). See Aaronson's review for some of the technical claims: arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0206089. (If you're still uncomfortable with keeping it up, you could keep the answer but add a note that some view it as controversial.) | |
| Sep 15, 2013 at 16:21 | comment | added | vzn | imho wolframs research is very original, pioneering, worthwhile, and influential albeit unconventional/unorthodox and out-of-mainstream in places, have cited it myself here several times with similarly lukewarm reception. there are many reasons thrown around for why it is "controversial" [agreed to some degree] but not all of them valid. MV think you should provide a ref. otherwise its just unsubstantiated off-the-record gossip. one questionable reason appears to be that its too empirical. also, wolframs bkg is physics. maybe a topic for meta. | |
| Sep 15, 2013 at 13:57 | comment | added | JRN | Thank you for the comment. My primary field of study is not computer science, so I didn't know that the book was controversial. Do you think I should delete this answer? | |
| Sep 15, 2013 at 13:55 | comment | added | Marcos Villagra | Are you aware that Wolfram is a little bit "controversial" among computer scientists? | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 23:51 | review | First posts | |||
| Sep 14, 2013 at 0:42 | |||||
| Sep 13, 2013 at 23:32 | history | answered | JRN | CC BY-SA 3.0 |