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Mathematica - Summa Cum Laude
Steven Wolfram, founder of Wolfram Research (the Mathematica software company)
is a genius - really. Born in Britain, he dropped out of the Oxford University physics
program at the ripe old age of 15 because he was bored with the overly simple classes.
He moved over to Cal Tech and graduated with a Ph.D. at 20. Stephen was the youngest
person ever to receive the MacArthur genius award. After a short while, he dropped
out of research and wrote his infamous mathematics program which, according to some,
"itself, could earn a good mathematics degree at any major university." Wolfram,
now 43 and very wealthy, spends his time contemplating "A New Kind of Science,"
which is the title of his new book. In it, he postulates that the inability of traditional
science to explain complex phenomena, like weather or the way water runs down the
side of a pitcher, means we should rethink our approach in a computational manner
- like a computer (don't worry, he did the thinking for us). Specifically, more
like fractals. Could he be the next Einstein or Newton? Time will tell, but most
of his contemporaries think he's spent too much time in isolation with his computers.
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