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Stephen Wolfram
Writings
ABOUT
WRITINGS
PUBLICATIONS
MEDIA
SCRAPBOOK
CONTACT
The Life and Times of Stephen Wolfram:
A Scrapbook
Scrapbook
Timeline
Bio Facts
Related Writings
1959–1976:
Early years
1964: As a contemplative four-year-old…
1964: At home with furry friend…
1965: The dawn of reason…
1966: Sampling the ancient world…
1967(?): Selfie!
1967: “He is full of spirit & determination…”
1969: First publication…
1969: Following the moon landing…
1971: Just turning twelve…
1972: Turning thirteen and saying what he knows about particle physics…
1973: Starting to program…
1974: A treatise on particle physics…
1975: Publishing a physics paper…
1976: In Eton regalia…
1976: Particle physics calculations… or life before Mathematica…
1976–1982:
Quarks and beyond...
1976: Science with pen plotter…
1977: A first adventure in cosmology…
1977: Card-carrying physicist…
1978: As teenage particle physicist…
1978: Almost the inflationary universe…
1978: Computer algebra as secret weapon…
1979: Becoming a professor…
1979: A very short paper, just for once…
1979: Figuring out where the top quark can be…
1980: Seeing the quarks (and gluons)…
1981: A little media adventure…
1981: Mathematica’s immediate ancestor…
1981: Beginning to write about “complex structures” (with a word processor)…
1982: How much energy is there in an empty box?
1982: Numerical computation in the service of quantum field theory…
1981–1985:
Into the computational universe...
1981: Finding out what cellular automata do…
1982: In the midst of big discoveries…
1982: Cellular automata make fractals…
1983: The first cellular automaton paper…
1983: Virtual taxonomy: discovery of the four classes of cellular automata…
1984: Yes, the shell looks like the cellular automaton on the screen…
1984: Cellular automata on a Sun-2 upstairs from Einstein’s old office…
1984: Cellular automata on a Sun-2 upstairs from Einstein’s old office…
The Wolfram Classes appear in print…
Part of the class 4 zoo…
1984: Cellular automata grace the cover of
Nature
magazine…
1984: What a mess! The two-step finite automation for rule 18…
1984: Some new science slips into
Scientific American
…
1985: Cellular automata in two dimensions…
1985: Short, sweet and rarely understood…
1984–1987:
Building complex systems research
1984: Rule 30 in all its glory…
1984: Feynman tries to prove that Wolfram is wrong…
1984: The business of cellular automata: commemorative postcards…
1984: “You should study complexity”
1985: A friend’s advice (mostly) not taken…
1985: Trying the patent system on cellular automata…
1985: Applying cellular automata to fluid flow…
1986: A first collection of cellular automaton papers…
1986: The state of cellular automata in 1986…
1986: Starting a journal…
1987: Summarizing complex systems just before leaving the field…
1987: Pretty good technology prediction…
1986–1990:
Mathematica begins...
1987: It all starts with C code…
1987: Mathematica is alive! Programs in Mathematica before it was Mathematica…
1987: Omega, Polymath, Technique… and finally… Mathematica…
1988: Mathematica is bundled on every NeXT computer…
1988: The first Mathematica poster…
June 23, 1988: Mathematica arrives…
June 23, 1988: Mathematica Version 1…
June 23, 1988:
The Mathematica Book
is published…
June 24, 1988: The day after: Mathematica is a hit…
1989: A brief bearded phase…
1989: 30th-birthday gift from the company…
1989: Apple and Albert promote Mathematica…
1990: The first Mathematica Conference…
1989–1999:
Mathematica grows up
1989: Speaking like a CEO
1990:
The Mathematica Journal
is launched…
1991: Getting ready for Mathematica 2…
1991: Posing for the release of Mathematica 2…
1991: Mathematica 2 is released…
1992: Mathematica wins awards of all shapes and sizes…
1992: Mathematica expands around the world…
1993: Posing with staff on Mathematica’s fifth anniversary…
1995: In a rare corporate pose…
1995: Lots and lots of Mathematica books…
1996: Mathematica 3 is released…
1996: Making a point in an interview…
1996: On the road to promote Mathematica 3…
1998: Posing with staff on Mathematica’s 10th anniversary…
1998: Mathematica is ten years old…
1999: Mathematica 4 is released…
1991–2002:
A decade of basic science
1992: Collecting data for
A New Kind of Science
…
1992–2000: How the cover of NKS came to be…
1994: Hard at work on
A New Kind of Science
…
1994: Collecting the seeds for the new science…
1995: It was going to be a publicity shot for
A New Kind of Science
—but years too early…
1996: Photographing for the NKS book
1996: A CEO’s work is never done…
1997: Cellular automata as inspirational office art…
1997: Cellular automata as inspirational office art…
1997: Shells for science…
1998: Pushing the envelope of printing technology…
1999: Rule 30 fills a page of a broadsheet newspaper…
2000: It took 6000 books to make
A New Kind of Science
…
2002: Posing for the dust jacket: a little tired, but satisfied to have finished writing NKS…
2002:
NKS arrives!
2002: Ugh! A perfectionist’s job is never done: a PostScript bug revealed in the direct-to-plate printing process of page 157 of NKS…
2002: Precision printing is still a craft: a pile of NKS signatures hot off the press…
2002: NKS is finally printed…
2002: Signing NKSes for friends and employees…
2002: Just like software engineering: the final nightly build of NKS…
2002: Every NKS is unique…
2002: The NKS story breaks…
2002:
A New Kind of Science
as a poster: all the same words, but rather small…
2002: NKS is #1 on Amazon…
2002: NKS hits Main Street…
2002: The NKS media rush begins…
May 14, 2002: www.wolframscience.com
2002–2007:
NKS takes off
2002–2003: NKS goes on tour (to 50 cities)…
2002: “Award-winning” means you have to pick up the awards…
2002: The personal server room grows
2003: The first NKS Summer School…
2003: The first NKS Conference…
2003: Mathematica 5 arrives…
2004: NKS as art: at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum (New York)…
2004: The NKS book goes online…
Citations to the NKS book grow…
2005: WolframTones is launched…
2007: Favorite cellular automata from five years of Summer School students…
2007: You never know where you’ll see an NKS book
2007: A bounty is put—and claimed—on the simplest universal Turing machine
2004–2009:
Mathematica, NKS... Wolfram|Alpha!
2006: The concept of Wolfram|Alpha begins to build…
2007: Creating the very first Demonstration for the Wolfram Demonstrations Project
2007: Beginning to blog…
May 1, 2007: A revolution in Mathematica…
2008: Mathematica is growing exponentially…
2009: The first glimmers of Wolfram|Alpha…
2009: Anticipation builds for Wolfram|Alpha
2009: Wolfram|Alpha: Testing, testing…
2009: Ready to push the button to launch Wolfram|Alpha
2009: We launched!
2009: August 29, 1959, 5:55pm GMT—the minute of turning 50
2009: Wolfram|Alpha goes mobile
2009: People like Wolfram|Alpha…
2012–present:
So many computational adventures...
2010: Announcing a 4th project at TED
2012: Personal analytics from Facebook
2012: The next generation does a code+flying demo…
2012: Analyzing personal analytics…
2012: National Museum of Mathematics…
2012: First Wolfram High-School Summer Camp
2012–2016: Traveling the world…
2013: Trying to be Wolfram|Alpha… but 300 years too early…
2015: Pi Day of the Century… with Wolfie…
2015: Hollywood, aliens, graphics…
2015: What is spacetime, really?
2016: Lives and ideas of some notable people…
2017– : Livestreamed CEOing
2000s: Making discoveries live and in public…
2017: Rule 30 business cards
2017: A train station covered in rule 30…
2017:
A New Kind of Science
on the web—now in high resolution
2017: Eclipse!
2017: Researching scientific history in the field…
2019: Revealing some personal productivity schemes…
2019: Collector of gadgets, useful and not
2019:
A New Kind of Science
makes it to the Moon…
2019: Testifying at the US Senate…
2019: Repeating a photo from 52 years earlier…
2019: Walkabout: a record number of steps…
2019: Putting prizes on all-time favorite rule 30
2019: Collecting some of my computational adventures…
2020: A lot of live CEOing
2020: A big surprise: perhaps a path to the fundamental theory of physics…
2020: The combinators 100-year celebration event
2013–present:
Wolfram Language emerges...
2011: Fitting into a timeline of systematic data
2013: Wolfram Language makes its debut (at SXSW)
2014: Wolfram Language is so succinct it’s tweetable
2015: Neural nets work!
2015: Mathematica turns 27
2015: Steadily building the technology stack…
2015: Wolfram Language: an elementary book…
2016: Roadside Wolfram Language…
2018: Mathematica is 30!
See also
The Mathematica Story:
A Scrapbook