Thanks for those references, guys. Most mind-expanding. The "Batshit" review isn't as ignorant and dismissive as I thought it would be, being by a former co-worker of Wolfram. But it does make me wonder if Mathematical Physics isn't a sort of tontine club, where the last man left standing collects all the kudos.
I toyed the other day with Alpha, trying to cajole it into giving me a tabulation of the planets and their orbital periods (Challenge: just try it). I thought: this is going to be really useful -- when I have a spare sabbatical year to get to grips with it. Had much the same feeling with Google Translate: http://translate.google.com -- passing innocuous phrases to and fro in languages I know a little. It didn't give me confidence to rely on it for anything that mattered. But where Google Translate differs from Alpha is that it has a button: "Contribute a better translation". So it has the means to get better, to build up the pile of heuristics it needs to converse with the common herd. I see no sign of that in Alpha. "Give Us your feedback!" doesn't have quite the same ring about it. (Does he really want to know?) No doubt Alpha will get better. Surely they're collecting transactions and drawing some sorts of conclusion. Sooner or later I expect to see a button appear marked "Admire Me", if not one marked "Improve Me". Ian On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 5:01 AM, Sherlock, Ric <[email protected]> wrote: >> From: Alex Rufon >> >> For the last few months (I started around November 2008 I think), I've >> been reading Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science". I have to admit >> that it has been taking an unusually long time for me to go through the >> book. I usually read it during my lunch breaks. >> >> This morning, I tried out Wolfram Alpha and following links to it, I >> stumbled on to a book review located here: >> http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/ which summarizes >> the books as "A Rare Blend of Monster Raving Egomania and Utter Batshit >> Insanity". >> >> I am now 2/3rds into the book and I believe I am not qualified (being >> just a lowly BSBA-Economics grad) to comment on its topic. It does try >> to apply itself to a diverse set of known concepts and ideas which I >> just take at face value. >> >> So what do you guys think about this book? > > > Haven't read the book or tried Wolfram Alpha but read this review of it the > other day: > "http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/05/wolframs-black-box-a-biologists-take-on-wolframalpha.ars"; > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
