The Man Who Cracked The Code to Everything ...

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.06/wolfram_pr.html

... But first it cracked him. The inside story of how Stephen Wolfram went from boy genius to recluse to science renegade.
By Steven Levy

Word had been out that Stephen Wolfram, the onetime enfant terrible of the science world, was workin on a book that would Sa! "t #ll, a paradi m$bustin tome that would not onl! be the definitive account on comple%it! theor! but also the openin ambit in a new wa! to view the universe. &ut no one had read it. 'hou h ph!sicall! unimposin with a soft, round face and a droll (n lish accent polished at (ton and )%ford, Wolfram had alread! established himself as a lar er$ than$life fi ure in the ossip! world of science. # series of much$discussed reinventions made him sort of the &ob *!lan of ph!sics. +e,d been a child enius, and at -1 had been the !oun est member of the storied first class of .ac#rthur enius awards. #fter la!in the roundwork for a brilliant career in particle ph!sics, he,d suddenl! switched to the untraditional pursuit of stud!in comple% s!stems, and, to the establishment,s disma!, dared to pioneer the use of computers as a primar! research tool. 'hen he seemed to turn his back on that field. +e started a software compan! to sell .athematica, a computer lan ua e he,d written that did for hi her math what the spreadsheet did for business. "t made him a rich man. /ow he had supposedl! returned to science to write a book that would make the bi est splash of all. #nd, as someone who,d followed his pro ress since the mid$1010s, " was oin to see some of it. We a reed to meet for dinner in &erkele!. #s " drove to the restaurant, rain started comin down in sheets2 on the pavement, water ran toward the utter in twisted, chaotic rivulets $ seemin l! unfathomable patterns that " would never view in the same wa! after Stephen Wolfram was done with me. We chatted throu h dinner, rememberin some of our histor!. #nd then he handed over a stack of papers. 'he t!pe was set and the dia rams were sharp $ apparentl! he was almost at the pa e$ proof sta e, with publication pendin . ",d known about his work in a former backwater of ph!sics called cellular automata, and as " read the first few para raphs, it was clear he was usin that research as a back round to make more profound statements. 3er! profound statements. #s best " could make out in m! 4uick flip throu h the pa es, he seemed to be sa!in that the ke! to the universe was computation: 'he entire cosmos, from 4uantum particles to the formation of ala%ies, was a perpetual runtime flowin from simple rules. 5et despite all our learnin , human bein s have missed the point of it all, because of the elusive nature of comple%it!. 'hat is, until Stephen Wolfram came alon and uncovered what a few millennia,s worth of scientists had somehow failed to comprehend. Whoa. " wondered if the pa es " was holdin would actuall! be a part of histor!. )r would the! be re arded as foll!, an act of hubris b! a brain$punk who,d been thumbin his nose at the scientific establishment even before he be an to shave6 " handed it back to him, with the assurance that upon its completion within a few months, ",d et a chance to o throu h it at m! own pace. #nd so would the world.

'hat was 10 !ears a o. What happened to Stephen Wolfram in the interim has become sort of an urban le end in the scientific communit!. /ot lon after our dinner, which occurred in the sprin of 100-, he became, in his own words, a 7recluse.7 +e moved, with the woman he had recentl! married 8a mathematician9, to the :hica o area and started a famil!. +e rarel! made the two$hour drive to Wolfram ;esearch, his thrivin software compan!. "nstead, he put himself in a kind of voluntar! house arrest, sin le$mindedl! devoted to the completion of the book. 7+e dropped totall! out of the scene in ever! sense of the word,7 sa!s his friend 'errence Se<nowski, a neuroscientist at the Salk "nstitute. 7+e hasn,t published a word, he doesn,t o to meetin s. +e,s in a self$made isolation center.7 'o ma%imi=e his concentration, Wolfram became nocturnal: +e worked at ni ht, when the world was asleep, and retired at 1 in the mornin . #s the Web emer ed and e%ploded, as dotcoms boomed and busted, as the White +ouse went from &ush to :linton to &ush, he worked. #t some point he had decided that no conventional publisher would provide the attention and e%actin standards that his book demanded. 8+e had no lack of offers.9 So he decided to do it himself, usin the resources of his software compan!. "t would result in one of the most e%pensive vanit! pro<ects in histor!. )r as one friend, >re or! :haitin, an information theorist at "&., puts it, 7+e reminds me of the noblemen who worked in science durin the 1100s $ the! did it for the love of it.7 Wolfram,s da!s would be in in mid$afternoon. +e,d usuall! do an hour or two of official business, operatin a multimillion$dollar compan! b! email and conference call. (arl! evenin hours offered an opportunit! for some famil! time. 'hen, as the world retired and distractions fell awa!, he,d enter the professionall! soundproofed, wood$lined office on the top floor of his house and immerse himself in the act of remakin science. +e spent hours runnin thousands of computer simulations and notin the results. &ecause part of his pro<ect involved nailin down the conceptual histor! of do=ens of scientific branches, he,d surf the Web. 7)ne can devour lots of papers in ver! short amounts of time in the middle of the ni ht,7 he would later e%plain to me. +e,d be in with an idea, and start downloadin papers. (ventuall!, 7!ou feel kind of depressed that it,s too bi a field and !ou,re never oin to understand it.7 &ut then, 7usuall! in a few da!s it all starts to kind of cr!stalli=e and !ou reali=e that there reall! are onl! three ideas in this field, and two of them !ou don,t believe. #nd sometimes at that sta e, when ",m checkin that ",ve reall! ot all of the ideas, " find it useful to chat with people. Sometimes !ou hear about somethin else. #nd sometimes !ou don,t.7 Wolfram,s friends came to know the drill. 75ou et a call at - in the mornin ,7 sa!s Se<nowski. 7&! the mornin he knows more than !ou do.7 (ver! two weeks or so, Wolfram would call an outside e%pert, but usuall! found these sessions unsatisf!in . #ll too often he,d be disappointed that the alle ed master couldn,t provide him with the information he needed. +e pressed on, never a da! off. 7" wanted a strai ht line from where " started to where " wanted to et to,7 he sa!s. 7" cut off interaction with the outside world $ not that it wouldn,t have been fun, " personall! like it $ but those little perturbations would make the thin take lon er.7 )n a ood ni ht, he,d et a pa e written, and he,d be a few hundred words closer to finishin . #nd so it went, ni ht after ni ht, a lone e%plorer inventin his own brand of science while the world slept. #t various times, it appeared publication was imminent. 'hose who purchased a collection of his scientific papers, issued in hardback in 100?, saw an ima e of the cover art for his book, then titled A Science of Complexity 87comin soon,7 the caption said, 7sure to become a landmark in the histor! of modern science79. )ver

the ne%t few !ears, Wolfram teased his public b! hintin at the contents in occasional interviews. &ut the publication date kept movin back. Wolfram,s friends seriousl! feared that it would never be completed. Wolfram predicts an algorithmic key to the universe that can compute uantum physics ! or" say" reality T# ! in four lines of code.

(arl! last !ear, Wolfram told me he was almost finished, this time for real. +e promised to send me an earl! cop!, if " would si n a nondisclosure a reement. # few da!s later, A New Kind of Science arrived. .! cop! 8number -69 was broken up into three thick sections. 'o ether the! dwarfed a phone book. # sticker on the otherwise blank cover was printed with m! name on it. 'here was a disconcertin warnin : 7:)/@"*(/'"#A: ;eceipt and perusal of this document permitted pursuant to nondisclosure a reement ... "f !ou do not have such an a reement please return this immediatel!....7 "f " thou ht that the draft " had limpsed in 100- was provocative, it was nothin compared with the scope and sheer chut=pah of the finished product. Scheduled to reach stores in .a!, A New Kind of Science will i nite controvers! in the scientific world. 'he self$conscious comparisons with /ewton,s 161B Principia will undoubtedl! earn Wolfram both attention and derision. Some earl! readers are drawin analo ies instead to >alileo $ not in terms of scientific achievement, but heres!. #t 1,-10 pa es, the book pushes the limit of what can be ph!sicall! bound between two covers. "nside, it reco ni=es no boundaries, not onl! ran in throu h traditional fields of science but venturin into the realms of philosoph!, theolo !, the social sciences, and even e%traterrestrial polic!. 'here are two sections, the lar er bein a main te%t of 1- chapters written in ever!da! (n lish, with almost no e4uations, in order to reach an audience of nonspecialists. 8)ne of his friends, :arne ie .ellon mathematical lo ician *ana Scott, complained to Wolfram that A New Kind of Science reads like USA Today. #s if.9 Cust as important as the te%t are hundreds of detailed dia rams, the ma<orit! of them visual representations of e%periments run from .athematica pro rams. 'he second section is a collection of notes, which includes a piecemeal !et concise histor! of science throu h the filter of a didactic middle$a ed, .ac#rthur$winnin Cedi mind$warrior. "t also contains personal notes, bits of .athematica code, various mentions of previous work 8thou h biblio raphic comments are scrupulousl! avoided9, and an inde% of 1D,000 entries. 'o Wolfram, adoptin a relativel! readable st!le also meant <ettisonin all pretense of humilit!, a trait that in an! case he believes is a waste of time. "n a note titled 7:larit! and modest!,7 he admits to havin once subscribed to the 7common st!le of understated scientific writin 7 but concluded that unless he e%plicitl! identified his findin s as the earth$shatterin concepts he believed them to be, readers wouldn,t rasp their si nificance. )f course, the ver! nature of his approach $ la!in his theor! out in one &robdin na ian salvo $ is b! nature immodest. &! re<ectin the standard protocols of scientific publication $ the release of findin s in a series of refereed, <ar on$laden papers with ri orous mathematical proofs $ Wolfram is consciousl! b!passin the establishment, en a in in a form of retail science that aims strai ht for the people. Wolfram insists that 7doin a small piece and tellin the world about it7 would have taken him three times lon er, and besides, 7if !ou ive them little pieces, the!,re not oin to come up with rand conclusions.7 'he book be ins with a thunderclap:

7'hree centuries a o science was transformed b! the dramatic new idea that rules based on mathematical e4uations could be used to describe the natural world. .! purpose in this book is to initiate another such transformation, and to introduce a new kind of science that is based on the much more eneral t!pes of rules that can be embodied in simple computer pro rams.7 +e oes on to e%plain that b! appl!in a sin le ke! observation $ that the most complicated behavior ima inable arises from ver! simple rules $ one can view and understand the universe with previousl! unattainable clarit! and insi ht. 'he idea of comple%it! arisin from simple rules $ and that the universe can best be understood b! wa! of the computation it re4uires to rind out results from those rules $ is at the center of the book. 'he bi idea is that the al orithm is mi htier than the e4uation. 7Stephen makes the point that /ewton developed calculus before &abba e invented computin $ but what if it had been the other wa!67 sa!s ;ock! Eolb, a ph!sicist at the Swiss ph!sics laborator! :(;/. Wolfram is not satisfied with simpl! e%plainin and <ustif!in his contentions, but instead makes substantial efforts to appl! his insi hts to do=ens of fields. 7What,s basicall! happened is that " had this idea of how to use simple pro rams to understand thin s about nature, the universe, other stuff,7 he sa!s. 7#nd !ou can start lookin at 4uestions that have been around forever, and !ou reall! et somewhere.7 +e invariabl! introduces each topic in a similar fashion: :urious to know about _______ F:+))S( #/5 S:"(/'"@": *"S:"GA"/(H and how his new theories mi ht appl!, he decides to take a look at the histor! of the field. #ma=in l!, he concludes, for hundreds of !ears so$called e%perts have failed to answer ke! 4uestions that should have been easil! resolved centuries a o. 8Wolfram,s disappointment in his predecessors is bottomless.9 &ut when Wolfram applies the ideas from A New Kind of Science, he be ins makin pro ress and e%presses the hunch that not lon after his ideas are understood, the bi est problems will 4uickl! be resolved, transformin the field. 'o list onl! a few e%amples: Wolfram finds an e%ception to the second law of thermod!namics2 con<ectures wh! e%traterrestrials mi ht be communicatin with us in messa es we can,t perceive2 e%plains seemin randomness in financial markets2 defines randomness2 elaborates on wh! the 7apparent freedom of human will7 is so convincin 2 reconstructs the foundations of mathematics2 devises a new wa! to perform encr!ption2 insists that *arwinian natural selection is an overrated component in evolution2 and, oh, theori=es that there,s a 7definite ultimate model for the universe.7 What mi ht this be6 'he mother of all rules2 a sin le, simple 7ultimate rule7 that computes ever!thin from 4uantum ph!sics to realit! television. 'he clima% of the book is the principle of computational e4uivalence, which ma! as well be called 7Wolfram,s law.7 #fter hundreds of pa es of la!in roundwork, presentin case after case of visual e%amples where simple rules enerate counterintuitivel! comple% results, Wolfram concludes that this phenomenon is overwhelmin l! commonplace $ it,s at the base of ever!thin from morpholo ! to traffic <ams. 'hen he oes further, statin that once a s!stem achieves a certain, easil! attainable de ree of comple%it!, it,s reached the point of ma%imum comple%it!, as measured b! the computation re4uired to crank out the end result. (ver!thin at that level of comple%it! $ and that means almost ever!thin !ou can think of, from human thou ht to rain hittin pavement $ is e%actl! as comple% as an!thin else. "t,s an idea that is at once liberatin and humblin . Wolfram himself considers it the lo ical ne%t step from earlier scientific revolutions, each of which disabused humanit! of the notion that there is somethin 7special7 about our species and its place in the scheme of thin s. 8:opernicus showed we weren,t the center of the universe2 *arwin proved we were <ust another product of evolution.9 &asicall!, he,s sa!in that all we hold dear $ our minds, if not our souls $ is a computational conse4uence of a simple

rule. 7"t,s a ver! ne ative conclusion about the human condition,7 he admits. 75ou know, consider those as clouds in the universe that are doin a lot of complicated stuff. What,s the difference Fcomputationall!H between what the!,re doin and what we,re doin 6 "t,s not eas! to see.7 'he principle of computational e4uivalence also puts limits on science itself, rulin man! 4uestions unanswerable because the onl! wa! to discover the conse4uences of man! comple% processes is to let thin s proceed naturall!. 'here,s no shortcut, since our own computational tools are at best onl! as powerful as the complicated s!stems we hope to stud!. )n the other hand, if the concept is valid, it portends ama=in technolo ical developments. 75ou mi ht think machines can,t capture nature because these pro rams are too simple,7 Wolfram sa!s. 7&ut the principle of computational e4uivalence sa!s that,s <ust not true. 'hese pro rams can do all the stuff that happens in nature.7 &! that reasonin , no barriers e%ist to prevent machines from thinkin as humans do. 7" have little doubt,7 he writes, 7that within a matter of a few decades what " have done will have led to some dramatic chan es in the foundations of technolo ! $ and in our basic abilit! to take what the universe provides and appl! it for our own human purposes.7 )nl! a few people $ mainl! friends of his in the scientific communit! $ have read the book before its publication. 'he! are vastl! impressed, but at this point enerall! reluctant to endorse all of it2 the! sa! people will take decades to absorb ever!thin Wolfram is proposin . /ot heard from !et are the voices of the establishment, which undoubtedl! will have problems with the unconventional work and its author. 7.ost scientists will find it difficult to believe that there,s a better wa! to do science,7 sa!s :(;/,s Eolb. 7"t,s not the wa! we,ve been trained to think.7 Grobabl! the tou hest criticism will come from those who re<ect Wolfram,s ideas because the evidence for his contentions is based on observin s!stems contained inside computers. 7When it comes to computer e%periments,7 he sa!s, 7" can <ust do them and can know absolutel! $ definitivel! $ " ot the ri ht answer and understand what,s oin on.7 Wolfram can ar ue at len th wh! this is a valid approach. Iltimatel!, he believes, he and his future followers will enerate a wealth of computer$related s!stems that create phenomena identical to those found in the natural world $ and the wei ht of the evidence will convince all but the most hardened skeptics that his ideas are dead$on. 'he be innin s of this are rules that seem to produce on a computer the same results as pi mentation patterns on <a uars and seashells, the behavior of financial markets, or the rowth of leaves. @or now, the skeptics aren,t havin it. 7WorthlessJ7 sa!s renowned ph!sicist @reeman *!son, who received an earl! cop! of A New Kind of Science and re4uired onl! a lance before dismissin it. 7"t,s a case of st!le over substance.7 "f Wolfram,s ideas ultimatel! are refuted, he will be remembered as one more brilliant u! who went overboard, ver in on me alomania. &ut even if he is wron , A New Kind of Science is an incredible achievement, one that will richl! reward adventuresome readers. )f course, if he is ri ht, his book indeed belon s to histor!. (ither wa!, the world is about to reckon with a scientist who,s makin the bi est leap ima inable: remakin science itself, with onl! his computer and his brain. "n a sense, A New Kind of Science is the result of a <ourne! that be an with a computer printout produced b! an earl! Sun workstation on Cune 1, 101?. Stephen Wolfram, then -D, was alread! on his second career. &orn in 10D0 to a father who was both a te%tile manufacturer and a minor novelist, and a mother who tau ht philosoph! at )%ford, the !oun Wolfram was clearl! a prodi ! $ and a handful. 7" uess " was not a ver! eas! kid,7 Wolfram told me when we first met in 101?. +is

bab!$sitters would t!picall! leave after a week or so 7because " was terrible to them.7 #t a e 10, he decided to become a scientist and be an operatin in much the same isolated manner that would characteri=e his later methodolo !. #lmost from the start, he developed an aller ! to the establishment. #t 1-, he won a scholarship to (ton, where he astonished teachers with his brilliance and frustrated them b! takin no instruction whatsoever. +e made mone! b! doin other kids, math homework. #t 1?, he became interested in a particle ph!sics problem and wound up writin a paper that was accepted b! a presti ious professional <ournal. +e entered )%ford at a e 1B, but it is an e%a eration to sa! he attended it $ b! his account, he went to first$ !ear lectures on his first da! and found them 7awful.7 'he ne%t two da!s he dropped in on second$ and then third$!ear lectures, 4uickl! decidin 7it was all too horrible $ " wasn,t oin to o to an! more lectures.7 So he worked independentl!, makin no secret of his disdain for the professors he considered his intellectual inferiors. When he took end$of$!ear e%ams, he finished at the top of his class. (ventuall!, after publishin 10 papers, he left )%ford for :altech, which presented him with a Gh* in theoretical ph!sics <ust weeks after he turned -0 and hired him as a facult! member alon side luminaries like ;ichard @e!nman and .urra! >ell$.ann. # !ear later, he won the .ac#rthur award. +e considered the surroundin hubbub an anno!ance, and durin a network '3 interview he conspicuousl! picked his nose. #t :altech, he ran into his first serious professional flap. Wolfram had become interested in how computers could help the scientific process2 he developed S.G, a computer lan ua e that performed tasks like al ebra. &ecause of :altech,s patent rules, an u l! dispute broke out, and Wolfram was forever embittered that he was denied sole ownership of what he considered his creation. +e left :altech for a sinecure at the "nstitute for #dvanced Stud!, the Grinceton, /ew Cerse!$based former home of #lbert (instein. &ut b! that time, he was no lon er interested in particle ph!sics. "nstead, he be an pursuin what he viewed as more creative areas, 7thin s that people would consider cra=!.7 Specificall!, he became interested in cellular automata. #t the time, the field of cellular automata, or :#s, oscillated between a science and a computer eek,s pla!thin . :#s themselves are abstract s!stems that pose a spreadsheetlike universe in which individual cells move from one condition to another $ for e%ample, from dark to li ht $ one click at a time, accordin to what rules have been set for this evolution. 'hese rules determine the color of the cells in the ne%t iteration, dependin on the conditions of the current pattern. 'he word a tomata refers to the nature of the process, in which the patterns on the rid evolve dependin not on human intervention but on the rules themselves: )nce the initial condition and those rules are set, all a person can do is sit back and watch. 'he field was the brainchild of the le endar! mathematician Cohn von /eumann, at the su estion of his friend Stanislaw Ilam. 3on /eumann was interested in the idea of artificial life, particularl! self$reproduction. +is claim $ which would be echoed b! those who went on to stud! :#s $ was that these s!stems should not be seen solel! as mathematical abstractions but as stripped$down versions of the universe itself, wherein the pa eant of cells turned on and off on a checkerboard 8or computer screen9 could actuall! stand for the mechanisms in the ph!sical world. )ne computer scientist, (d @redkin, the former head of ."',s famous Gro<ect .#:, bent some minds b! su estin that the universe itself was a iant cellular automaton. /ot surprisin l!, Wolfram re arded the earl! work in the field as 7<ust awful7 and proceeded to brand the cate or! as his own, somewhat to the disma! of the small :# communit!, which appreciated the attention Wolfram brou ht but resented his imperious attitude. 87Wolfram is an absolutel! brilliant u!, and he,s ri ht about the new kind of science that underlies ever!thin ,7 sa!s @redkin. 7&ut he can,t escape a

compulsion to take credit.79 Wolfram methodicall! anal!=ed sets of rules, developin a classification s!stem that rated the comple%it! of various :#s $ all with the intention of clarif!in the wa! we view comple%it! in the real world. +e did this b! stud!in and numberin all possible rule sets in one$dimensional :#s. 'hese were elementar! s!stems in which the :# rows one line at a time2 the state $ dark or li ht $ of each cell on the new line is determined b! a rule that depends on the conditions on the previous line. Wolfram also be an to build a case that the same mechanisms that determined the outcome of cellular$automata e%periments were omnipresent in nature itself. +e was often photo raphed with seashells whose pi ment displa!ed a pattern that was eeril! similar to those produced in his computer printouts of simple :# e%periments. Wolfram was a controversial fi ure at the Grinceton institute in the mid$1010s. (stablished scientists considered his operation on the third floor of @uld +all, where he and his assistants sat in front of workstations and performed di ital e%periments, as somehow unseeml!, not the wa! serious research should be conducted. 7",m not sure that what he does can be called science,7 the institute,s *!son told me around that time. 7"t,s more in the nature of mathematical ames. +e clearl! is not a ph!sicist an!more.7 #nd +ein= Ga els, the late ph!sicist who headed the /ew 5ork #cadem! of Sciences, told me, 7'he wunderkind has no clothes.7 @or his part, Wolfram felt he could have used more outra e $ it would have meant people were thinkin about those ideas and takin them seriousl!. "n Wolfram,s mind, stud!in the results of cellular$automata runs on the computer could unlock deep truths about the universe itself. 'he proof for him came one fateful da! in Cune 101? when he printed out the results of a -$* cellular$automata e%periment usin ;ule K0. When Wolfram studied the printouts on an airline fli ht from /ew 5ork to Aondon, he was thunderstruck. 'his e%periment used the simplest of initial conditions $ one darkened cell on the top row. #nd the process of eneratin future states was elementar!. 5et ;ule K0 !ielded an eruption of the most complicated, seemin l! random output ima inable. 8See pa e 1KD.9 "n fact, there seemed no end to it. #s Wolfram studied it, he be an to reali=e that there was somethin profound about how such comple%it! would arise from a simple pro ram and be an to wonder about the implications. (ventuall!, he would conclude that ;ule K0 was not an anomal! but a crucial window onto the wa! the world operated. Wolfram,s cellular$automata work came to be cited in more than 10,000 papers. +e felt, however, that even his enthusiasts were missin the point $ that :#s held the ke! to a vast understandin of the world. #ware that the "nstitute for #dvanced Stud! was not ea er to host his e%plorations, he left for the Iniversit! of "llinois at Irbana$:hampai n, which ave him his own institute, the :enter for :omple% S!stems ;esearch. &ut after two !ears, he left the center $ amon his man! complaints, he sa!s, 7the oofiest thin was that " was supposed to be the u! who went out to raise mone!, while other people ot to do science.7 &! then, he had seemin l! been diverted b! another pro<ect $ creatin a computer lan ua e called .athematica, which took his S.G work at :altech to a much hi her level. +e started Wolfram ;esearch and hired top scientists and mathematicians to staff its :hampai n head4uarters. 'he software came out in 1011 and was an instant success. &! 100D, more than a million people were usin it. .athematica turned out to be invaluable to Wolfram, allowin him to pursue his real dream of makin a mammoth contribution to scientific understandin . )n a mundane level, the compan! brou ht him the wealth and resources to proceed with his book without havin to worr! about income or research rants $ since Wolfram ;esearch was a private compan!, with the ma<orit! of shares owned b! its founder, there was no problem spendin millions of dollars on a personal science pro<ect. .ore

si nificantl!, the creator of the software turned out to be its most avid consumer. .athematica was a powerful tool to run the e%periments that formed the basis of his 7new kind of science.7 # couple of !ears after the pro ram was finished, Wolfram ushed to me that 7",ve been oin back and redoin problems, and it,s spectacular $ thin s that once took me a week to do now take a half hour.7 Wolfram had iven himself the ammunition to remake science, and in 1001, he withdrew his ph!sical presence from the compan! to concentrate on the book. So be an his da!s as a recluse. )n a crisp mornin in @ebruar! this !ear, " am off to :hampai n to sit down with Wolfram for the first time since that ni ht in &erkele! a decade a o. )nl! a few da!s before, he absolutel!, positivel! completed A New Kind of Science. Still tr!in to acclimate himself to the weird circumstance of bein awake at 0 in the mornin , the :() is makin a rare appearance at Wolfram ;esearch, located in an si%$stor! office buildin not far from the universit! campus, to review some pro<ects. 8'he book itself $ D0,000 copies $ is about to roll off presses at a :anadian printer, the onl! operation in the western hemisphere that Wolfram <ud ed capable of renderin the hi h$ definition raphics and illustrations. "t will cost L1- a cop! to print $ five or si% times that of a conventional book $ makin its L?D cover price somewhat of a bar ain.9 What was a mop of unrul! hair when we last met is now a baldin pate. +e wears a tweed <acket, slacks, and sneakers, the picture of a software e%ecutive. @or someone with so little patience for human failin , his mana ement st!le is fairl! loose, thou h clearl! his emplo!ees are deferential to him. #t a .athematica desi n review, he flirts with sarcasm $ 7Wh! would an!one want to do this67 he sa!s of a proposed feature $ but listens to the answer and finall! concludes that the proposal is impressive. 7" wouldn,t have been here for 11 !ears if he was the terror that people sa! he is,7 sa!s marketin e%ec Cean &uck, who assumes a maternal tolerance toward the 4uirks of her emplo!er. 8She finds it humorous that when she told her boss she,d be bus! on Super &owl Sunda!, he asked, 7What,s that679 'he K00 people at Wolfram ;esearch know the! are free to act independentl!, but onl! in the spirit of their leader. 'hou h durin the "nternet boom some hoped that Wolfram ;esearch would o public, 'heo >ra!, a scientist who helped Wolfram form the business, sa!s that was never a possibilit!. 7"t wouldn,t be Stephen,s compan! then,7 he sa!s. Aater in the da!, " meet with a roup who assisted Wolfram on A New Kind of Science. 'here are perhaps a do=en people in the room, and like prisoners shown the open ate after servin a lon sentence, ever!bod! is a little stunned that the book is actuall! finished. 'here are fact checkers, proofreaders, raphics specialists, Gh*s who helped run the computer e%periments, the art director, the production mana er $ a disparate collection who were part scientific staff, part publishin staff. (ach da!, while Wolfram was sleepin , this contin ent would be busil! eneratin raphics, securin permissions, and lookin for the perfect photo raph of broccoli. 8)ne tells a stor! of when Wolfram re<ected a picture of a panther 7because it had a funn! e%pression.79 #s the book ot bi er, there were conflicts over how to handle its comple%it!. #t one point there was actuall! a debate about whether there should be notes to the notes. "n some wa!s, A New Kind of Science was run like a software pro<ect. 'he work was alwa!s to be delivered as a di itall! t!peset file with all the raphics included: one massive load of bits. So instead of drafts, there were fre4uent 7builds,7 some of them bu ier than others. 'here were alpha versions and beta versions. Some of the en ineers are developin # /ew Eind of Science (%plorer, a G: application with a mini$.athematica pro ram that allows people to run the e%periments in the book and be in to do research pro<ects of their own. Wolfram feels ver! stron l! that 7his7

kind science is one throu h which amateurs will unearth ma<or discoveries, and he has been thinkin of various wa!s to assist them. Suddenl!, it occurs to me that someone mi ht be missin in this roup. 7Who actuall! edited the book67 " ask. 'here is a pu==led silence in the room. #n editor6 @inall! Wolfram sa!s, 7/o one.7 (%cept, of course, the author. Aater on, he e%plains. 7" think in terms of ,'his is m! book and ",m full! responsible for it.,7 #fter Wolfram,s da! at his software compan!, we drive throu h town to a nondescript steak, chicken, and salad house in Irbana to continue our discussion. " ask him what he thinks the reaction will be to A New Kind of Science. +e doesn,t uess, and in a sense doesn,t care. 7" think when " started this pro<ect " was still ver! interested in sa!in , ,What will other people think6, #fter a while " reali=ed, ,Wh! am " reall! doin this6 "s it reall! worth m! while to spend 10 !ears of m! life doin somethin to et other people to sa! positive thin s about it6, /o, it,s not. #bsolutel! not. #nd actuall!, from some ver! c!nical point of view, m! opinion of the world at lar e isn,t hi h enou h for me reall! to be interested in what the! have to sa!.7 So when people complain $ and the! will $ that Wolfram,s 7new kind of science7 is built not on proofs but on lookin at computer readouts, he,ll see their complaints as the howlin of dinosaurs. 7'he!,ll probabl! talk derisivel! about little pro rams and ames,7 he sa!s. 7&ut it,s not reall! en a ement, it,s like, ,Aet,s <ust hope it oes awa!., "t,s like the print publishers hopin the Web oes awa!.7 +e prefers to take the lon view. +e,s absolutel! confident that his work is sound and is read! to let people absorb it over a period of decades. +e believes that in each area he discusses, other researchers will confirm his findin s. +e thinks that eventuall! the principle of computational e4uivalence will be as commonl! accepted as ravit!. .eanwhile, he sa!s, his main concern is that people actuall! read the book, and he professes to fear not those who will attack him but bandwa on$riders who will scan a chapter or two and then enerate arba e based on their misimpressions. #s the meal pro resses, our talk turns to an eni ma that is almost certainl! a computational e4uivalent of the m!steries of the universe: Wolfram himself. " point out that in a stran e wa!, this 1,-00$pa e tome with pictures and dia rams of computer e%periments and animal skins and seashells and a%ioms is an e%tremel! personal book. Gresented in the uise of science are passionate contentions about reli ion and free will and the nature of humanit!. 'he discoveries track its author,s obsessions. "n a sense, A New Kind of Science is Stephen Wolfram,s autobio raph!. 7'here are definitel! elements of e%pression there,7 he admits. 7" think 10, 1D !ears a o, " could not have done a decent <ob. ",ve seen more of people,s lives now. &ack then, " would have said, ," don,t care about theolo !, that,s not m! thin ., &ut as " kept lookin at the historical conte%t, " started reali=in that " actuall! did care about these thin s and had somethin to sa! about them.7 'he book also is ar uabl! a rite of passa e for him as a man. When " first met Wolfram in 101?, he insouciantl! dissed his parents, careers. 7",ve never read Fm! father,sH novels.... 'he! et ood reviews, but the! don,t sell terribl! man! copies,7 he told me. "ronicall!, A New Kind of Science is not <ust a scientific e%cursion but also a literar! e%cursion. Aike Cames Co!ce, Wolfram believes his ideal reader is one who will devote a lifetime to readin his book, and like Co!ce the novelist, Stephen Wolfram 8a novelist,s son9 has produced an enc!clopedic world. "f the e%pression of the book represents his father,s craft, the application of his ideas to the riddles of human e%istence reflects the concerns of his mother, the )%ford philosoph! professor, who died in 100K. &ack in 101?, he said of her, 7" have no idea what she does, and the onl! conse4uence of her bein in that profession is that " will never consider doin an!thin that,s labeled philosoph!.7 &ut A New Kind of Science is nothin if not a book on philosoph!. )ne of his friends su ests it should be called Principia Comp tat s. #nd in another iron! not lost on the author, Wolfram,s

research led him to a te%tbook on lo ic written b! his mother. 7" actuall! cared about the answers to the 4uestions,7 he sa!s. " think back to Wolfram as a brash, trash$talkin -D$!ear$old. /ow he,s a famil! man 87+avin kids has made him much more of a human bein ,7 sa!s a Wolfram ;esearch e%ec9 whose new work, while as iconoclastic as ever, turns out to be a homecomin for him, an outcome that seemed totall! unpredictable. )nl! b! nature runnin its inscrutable computations could the result become apparent. #s dessert is served, " brin up the secret$of$the$universe 4uestion. Wolfram,s theor! that there is a sin le rule at the heart of ever!thin $ a sin le simple al orithm that, in effect, enerates all the rules of ph!sics and ever!thin else $ is bound to be one of his most controversial claims, a theor! that even some of his close friends in ph!sics aren,t bu!in . @urthermore, Wolfram rubs our faces in the drear! implications of his contention. /ot onl! does a sin le measl! rule account for ever!thin , but if one da! we actuall! see the rule, he predicts, we,ll probabl! find it unimpressive. 7)ne mi ht e%pect,7 he writes, 7that in the end there would be nothin special about the rule for our universe $ <ust as there has turned out to be nothin special about our position in the solar s!stem or the ala%!.7 " have some trouble with this. 7",ve ot to ask !ou,7 " sa!. 7+ow lon do !ou envision this rule of the universe to be67 7",m uessin it,s reall! ver! short.7 7Aike how lon 67 7" don,t know. "n .athematica, for e%ample, perhaps three, four lines of code.7 7@our lines of code67 7'hat,s what ",m uessin . " mean, " don,t reall! know, but " think there,s no obvious evidence that it,s an! lon er than that. /ow, in a sense, it will be short if .athematica was a well$desi ned lan ua e. "t will be lon er if it doesn,t happen to be as well$desi ned, in the sense that that doesn,t happen to be the wa! the universe works. &ut we,re not lookin at -D,000 lines of code or somethin . We,re lookin at a handful of lines of code.7 7So it,s not like Windows67 7/o.7 Wolfram lau hs. 7"t,s not like Windows. "t,s oin to be somethin small, " think. ",ve certainl! wondered. 5ou ask about the theolo ical 4uestions and thin s. " think there will be a time when one will sort of hold those lines of code in one,s hand, and that is the universe. #nd what does this mean6 5ou know, how do we then feel about thin s, if this whole thin is <ust five lines of code or somethin 6 #nd in a sense, that is a ver! unsatisf!in conclusion, that sort of ever!thin that,s oin on, ever!thin out there, is all <ust this five lines of code we,re runnin .7 'here is a moment of silence between us. "n the back round are the clatter of dishes and silverware, noises that come from a restaurant in Irbana, "llinois, preparin for closin time. 'he mundane but comple% stuff of e4uivalent computational processes. 7Well,7 " sa! finall!, 7" uess we,d feel reall! bad if it wasn,t well$written.7 Wolfram rins. 75es, ri ht.7 #nother pause. 7So do !ou believe we,ll find this code in !our lifetime67 7" hope so. 5eah.7 7*o !ou want to find it67 7Sure. 'hat,d be nice.7 7"s that !our ne%t thin to do67 'he self$st!led /ewton of our times smiles, as if to himself. 7",d like to think about that. 5eah.7