"Google Killer" inventor, scientific genius Wolfram

Author | Nian Suqing

Editor-in-Chief | Wu Xingling

Produced | Program Life (ID: coder_life)

[Editor's Note to Program Life] There is a young genius who published his first academic paper on particle physics at the age of 15; at the age of 19, he went to California Institute of Technology to study basic particle physics and received a doctorate in theoretical physics within one year. He and Feynman then studied cellular automata together.

After he became a professor of physics, mathematics, and computer science at the University of Illinois, he was uneasy about doing research and doing business. The Wolfram Research software company he founded developed Mathematica, one of the world's four major mathematical softwares.

You must have guessed that he is the "scientific genius" Stephen Wolfram (Stephen Wolfram) (hereinafter collectively referred to as "Wolfram") !

Recently, he published an article explaining the theories leading to the foundation of physics. I wo n’t go into details about the theory. Let ’s take a look at the extraordinary life story of this scientific genius:

Wikipedia

10 year old determined to be a physicist

Born in London in 1959, Wolfram was a physicist, mathematician, software engineer, and business owner. He was hailed for his outstanding contributions in the fields of computer science, mathematics, and theoretical physics. Scientific genius ".

Wolfram determined to grow up to become a physicist when he was 10 years old. From the age of 15, Wolfram began to study applied quantum field theory and particle physics, and published related scientific papers in professional scientific journals such as "Nuclear Physics B" and "Australian Journal of Physics". The thesis topics include material creation and annihilation, elementary particles and particle flows, hadron and lepton physics, and molecular models.

Among them, a paper on heavy quark produced by his independent research when he was 18 years old was widely cited.

At the age of 17, Wolfram, who had not officially graduated from Eaton College, was admitted to Oxford University. After enrolling, he soon felt that the courses there were boring and dropped out, entering the California Institute of Technology. A year later, because of major achievements in the field of particle physics, he obtained a doctorate in particle physics and was immediately hired by California Institute of Technology, when he was only 20 years old. But when he recalled this past, he blinked, "I knew I should write my doctoral thesis earlier, how amazing it is to get a doctorate as a teenager!"

In 1981, Wolfram was awarded the MacArthur "Genius Figure" award and became the youngest recipient of the award in history.

"You must use the best tools for research"

A website in the United States once did a survey: 70% of innovators are successful outside their own areas of expertise. Wolfram is one of these 70% innovators.

Although Wolfram had achieved extraordinary achievements in the field of physics at a young age, he turned his attention to computers.

Wolfram first came into contact with computers at the age of 14, using paper tape, but he soon became a pretty powerful programmer.

"I always think that the best tools must be used for research. Even if I use the most advanced computer at that time, I still encounter problems. I understand that the only way is to build them myself. So, I will do it myself Now. "

Wolfram started developing SMP (the first modern computer algebra system) in 1979. At that time, the popular computer language was C. The first version of the software tool took a year, and there were hundreds of thousands of lines of optical code. Individual cooperation.

After that, Wolfram founded the Complex Systems Research Center at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and began to study the computer algebra system Mathematica. The first version was officially released on June 23, 1988.

Since its launch, this software has been widely used and praised by scientists, engineers, and other professional groups because it allows people to carry out various complex mathematical operations, such as solving equations, seeking derivatives, and seeking matrices. Inverse, draw 3D graphics, etc. Larry Smarr, director of the Institute of Communications and Information Technology at the University of California, San Diego, called Mathematica software "the most important scientific software ever."

The release of Mathematica marks the beginning of modern scientific and technological computing. It is the most powerful system in the world of general-purpose computing systems. Since its release, it has had a profound impact on how to use computers in technology and other fields. Wolfram himself was considered "a great sponsor of mankind" because of this invention, and stepped into the ranks of multi-millionaires.

Wolfram Language and WolframAlpha Search Engine

Although Mathematica has been around since the last century, the main programming language used by the software was not officially named "Wolfram language" until 2014. Wolfram expressed that he hopes this language will become "the most efficient programming language in the world", which can be applied to various smart devices and can be used for dialogue between humans and machines.

Speaking of the original intention of designing the Wolfram Language, Wolfram talked about his own experience: "There is one thing that bothers me, is that it always takes a long time to prepare for physical operations. Every time before starting a new physical operation To create a new C language program, this is simple but usually takes several hours. "

The Wolfram Language is a multi-modal programming language with wide and universal applicability. It can use unique symbolic programming to give brand-new flexibility to the concept of programming. It makes the computer understand human words into reality. As long as you can describe what you want, the computer will do it for you. The user defines the goal, and then the computer tries to understand the meaning as much as possible, and does its best to execute it. This simply changed the category of programmers, that is, all programs no longer require programmers to write lines of code, but only need to use text or even voice description.

In May 2009, Wolfram released a search engine WolframAlpha.

It seems that the interface of this engine is not different from other search interfaces, but according to the inventor Wolfram, it is actually a computing knowledge engine. For a variety of questions, it will not list related web pages with keywords, but directly give its answers.

For example, if you ask "what is D-sharp major", WolframAlpha can play it; if you type "toss 10 times, 4 times upwards," WolframAlpha can guess that you actually want to know the probability of tossing coins.

Mathematician Gregory · Tsai Ting said, this is "the first truly practical artificial intelligence" . All the answers of SIR-I come from the Alpha search engine.

WolframAlpha has taken a big step towards the ultimate goal of the Semantic Web, because whether it is Google or Baidu, it can provide users with links to web pages, and WolframAlpha can give effective answers to questions, so WolframAlpha was soon after its advent. Called "Google Killer".

Bestselling author

As early as 1981, Wolfram's research interest shifted from elementary particles to the origin of complexity in nature. From this period, computer experiments began to study the behavior of cellular automata and explain various complex phenomena. However, due to limited efforts to develop Mathematica and run its own company, this research had to be delayed.

In 1991, Wolfram recaptured his research: he sat down at 10 o'clock every night and began to study all night. At dawn, he began to rest and slept until noon.

It took 10 years before and after, Wolfram typed 100 million keyboards, produced research results that occupy 10G hard disk space, and finally formed a more than 1200 pages, 5 pounds of shocking work "A New Science ". Through this book, Wolfram elaborated his worldview completely: the nature of nature is calculation, but the nature of calculation must be explored experimentally. This is a new route. The title of the book is also here.

Wolfram claims that this book is the most important book in the history of science. In an interview with Forbes magazine, he boasted about the main findings he will give in the book, for example, to the theory of natural selection. Challenges, why time passes in one direction, explaining stock market fluctuations, how complex systems such as lightning to galaxies contain intelligence, etc.

In the week following the release on May 14, 2002, all the 50,000 copies of the first edition of "A New Science" were sold out. In the ranking of the online bookstore "Amazon", it once topped the list and became the best-selling book in the summer of 2002.

And Steve are friends

Wolfram said in an interview with the media: I am very lucky to meet many people, but the best way is to get along with people who can make complicated things simple, and this is my way of life. Jobs is the most representative one, he can solve very complex problems in the simplest way. In addition, his creativity also impressed me. We have talked about the cooperation of artificial intelligence many times. If he is still there, there must be many good ideas.

Wolfram and Jobs are good friends. Wolfram positions several of his products as "simple and powerful", which is highly similar to Apple's business philosophy to some extent.

Wolfram completed the book "A New Science" in 2002 and strongly invited Jobs to write a recommendation on the back cover, but was rejected by Jobs. Jobs said to him: "There are no recommendations on the back cover of Newton's work. , Why do you need it? "In the end, Wolfram chose to use a concise picture as the back cover-the same style of Jobs biography. In addition, it is said that the name of Wolfram's algebra software "Mathematica" was also helped by Jobs.

On the other hand, Jobs was also influenced by Wolfram. Wolfram admits: "I learned a lot from Steve Jobs. Also, through me, his views on computer languages have changed." At first, Steve Jobs firmly refused to use computer languages because he thought it was too complicated and too difficult to operate. Too. But after Wolfram created Alpha, Jobs completely changed his view. He realized that it was actually very useful, so he decided to adopt SIR-I for Apple mobile phones and insisted on using Alpha database.

After reading these experiences of Wolfram, some netizens said: I kneel!

I don't know what you think? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area.

reference:

Encyclopedia: Stephen Wolfram

Those who have artificial intelligence have the world? Interview with "Scientific Genius" Wolfram

Human Limits of the Cosmic Truth Series: Stephen Wolfram The Smartest Man on Earth Who Is Alive

Wolfram Language

Legendary Stephen Wolfram: the road to a new physics