A new kind of science
by Stephen Wolfram · first published 2002
14% recommend48% neutral38% critical
Why HN recommends it
Wide-ranging, thought-provoking tour of how simple rules, especially cellular automata, produce enormous complexity; suits readers curious about emergence and computation, and the full text is free online.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
This work presents a series of dramatic discoveries never before made public. Starting from a collection of simple computer experiments
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…Turing seems to be sort of a personal hero to Wolfram, so I'm sure that he'd have some interest in the results in the post. And for anyone interested in modeling nature with computers more generally, A New Kind of Science is wonderful reading and gives a great conceptual framework on how to go about it. It's sad that the Shalizi review is the first thing people refer to (it's sort of the Huffington Post of reviews).
on “Alan Turing's 'Morphogenesis' Theory Confirmed 60 Years After His Death” ↗Surprised no one has said "A New Kind of Science" by Stephen Wolfram. While not quite a new kind of science, it is all about cellular automata. http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/toc.html
on “Ask HN: Looking for a Book on Cellular Automata” ↗Another highly aesthetic, mostly fun book is Stephen Wolfram's New Kind of Science.
on “The nicest math book I own” ↗This reminds me a lot of Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science. A great read! www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/toc.html
on “Universal laws behind growth patterns, from Tetris to coffee stains” ↗I'm sure there are many, but a few that jump to mind, in no particular order, and spanning both fiction and non-fiction: The Selfish Gene - Dawkins A New Kind of Science - Wolfram The Singularity is Near - Kurzweil Gödel, Escher, Bach - Hofstadter Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies - Hofstadter Atlas Shrugged - Rand The Fountainhead - Rand Nineteen Eighty-Four…
on “Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?” ↗Eh, I maintain that A New Kind of Science is pretty interesting, and does contain interesting applications of his melding of complex systems, chaos theory, and finite automata. I do think this theory begins with very interesting prepositions…
on “Finally We May Have a Path to the Fundamental Theory of Physics” ↗…like the N^N^N^N^N^N^N^N^... causal interaction combinatorics of genetic regulatory networks or the behavior of real economies at scale. I'm still very much a fan of Stephen Wolfram's core thesis in A New Kind of Science. The book as a whole is a mixed bag and I understand why some had a negative reaction to it, but what he's basically saying if you cut away some of the hype is that CS may offer new mathematical primitives…
on “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences (1960)” ↗…or "magical" in the sense of "insufficiently understood, complex, and thus awe-inspiring." >If you haven't already read it, I think this is a pretty interesting take on it (in a sense): I devoured A New Kind of Science when it was released because I was fascinated by emergent systems and cellular automata at the time, and have read it again about a year ago, and found it didn't hold up as well. Nevertheless excellent…
on “The 'Chomskyan Era' (2000)” ↗…Kauffman - Reality is autocatalytic of life. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand - civilization as a struggle of producers vs. looters; selfishness > altruism; the love of money is the root of mostly good. A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram - Simple rules can yield arbitrarily complex behavior. Therefore reality is inherently computational from the lowest levels.
on “Ask HN: What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models?” ↗Wolfram's A New Kind of Science describes cellular automata in detail. The online version is free, https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/ A used copy is typically inexpensive and worth reading in my opinion, though other people have substantially…
on “Cryptography with Cellular Automata (1985) [pdf]” ↗I haven't read it yet, but you'd probably find Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" pretty interesting. From the talks I've seen a lot of it seems to stem from the idea of simple rules allowing a lot of complexity. He talks about other cellular automata other than Conway's Game of…
on “Elementary Knightship found in Conway's Game of Life” ↗…better person to represent A.I. to laymen. Say what you will about Wolfram and his personality, but the man is an icon of approachable and engaging science/math writing. Heck, once I started reading A New Kind of Science I could barely put it down -- I carried the damn thing on the subway even! Much better than Jane Austen anyway...
on “Stephen Wolfram Testifying at the Senate about A.I” ↗…with awe. It is also overwhelming, because you still can't understand most of what you're seeing and your brain struggles to make sense of it, hence the spirituality part. I'd recommend reading the "A New Kind of Science" from Stephen Wolfram, it talks a lot about our disability to fully interpret the information that's around us.
on “Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs” ↗…mentioned in my original submission post above: https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/4702#t... It's an amazing book even if it is a couple of decades old now. Stephen Wolfram's, "A New Kind of Science" is also good. He has been studying and writing about CAs since the 80s. CAs are used for many things. I am just starting to look at Ilachinski's work on combat simulation. There was a paper comparing…
on “3D Cellular Automata and GOL in the J programming language” ↗If anyone is interested in reading about this idea, I recommend Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" [0] and Max Tegmarks's "Our Mathematical Universe" [1]. [0] https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/ [1] https://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/mathematical.html
on “Game of Life, simulating itself, infinitely zoomable” ↗