David's Blague

I admit that about half the books I read, I read for the wrong reasons. For instance, I read Cellular Automata and Complexity because I wanted to be able to say something like "Oh, A New Kind of Science was really just a rehash of his previous work." It wasn't, of course, but I knew there would be something like that that I could say after I'd read it.

I think people thought I was joking in the previous book review when I admitted to being full of it, but that is often the (wrong) sort of reason I have for reading a particular book.

Well, this one was delightful. And if Stephen Wolfram ever comes into my office, I'm going to jump out of my chair and say hello, and ask him what his name is, and what he does for a living, pretending the whole time that I'm not peeing my pants with sheer anticipation. Then I'm going to pretend not to have read anything he's written on the topic, and try to ask one good question that makes him say to himself, "Wow, this guy is really thoughtful and intelligent, despite knowing nothing about the topic."

If you read one thing by Stephen Wolfram, get this book and start reading at page 411. It's a brilliant introduction to the field that shows Wolfram at his best. Then skip around and read a few others. Great reading for cocktail parties. On top of it all, some of Wolfram's ideas were actually easier to understand when they were a bit less developed. As counterintuitive as that is, ANKOS took for granted a very developed worldview that probably wasn't shared by most readers.

As is my practice, each book gets a rating. This one gets seven stars, for each of the seven papers I read through. I can't really comment on the remaining fifteen or so, but if I were to hazard a guess, most of them are probably okay, too. And Stephen, if you're reading this, just play along when you come to my office- it'll be fun!