Emergence

Biology 361 = Computer Science 361
Bryn Mawr College
Spring 2006

Stephen Wolfram

Who is he?

1. Child genius
2. Published article on particle physics at age 15
3. Won the MacArthur Award at 21
4. CEO; developed ''Mathematica''
5. 1991, "began to try all sorts of new experiments... within a few months... made more new discoveries... than in all the previous ten years put together." NKS, p. 20.

A New Kind of Science

1. What is the old kind of science?
2. What were its limits? How did this limit us?
3. What fields did the old way of thinking affect?
4. What would a new science be, let alone a new kind of science?
5. What is this new kind of science that he describes in this book?
6. What is the ''Principle of computational equivalence'', and ''universality''?

1D Cellular Automata