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May 4,2009

Stephan Wolfram of Wolfram Research has always been using mathematics to extend the boundaries of human understanding. He made his first commercial mark with Mathematica, a software tool that did for science and research what spreadsheets did for business. He then went quiet for about a decade and came back on the scene with a book called A New Kind of Science. NKS caused all kinds of passionate comments and discussion when it was first published.

Some compared it to Newton's Principia. Others thought it a compilation of loosely strung together ramblings. A lot of it was about how Wolfram went about publishing his theories, research, and conclusions. Good scientific works can always stand the test of time. It will be interesting to see how NKS is viewed a few hundred years from now.

For readers interested in something a bit more immediate, Wolfram Research has been getting a lot of press recently about a new application called "Alpha." Like other of Wolfram's projects, its goals are to change the way we work and see the world. Ambitious to say the least...

Some have seen bits and pieces of it. Others have actually touched and played with it. Sometime this month, we will all get to experience it first hand. This could be a very interesting month. [Permalink]- Wolfram Alpha