From Stephen Wolfram, one of the world's most recognized leaders in science and technology and the author of the groundbreaking bestseller A NEW KIND OF SCIENCE (more than 100,000 copies in print), comes an enlightening, thoroughly engaging collection of essays that examine the lives and work of great thinkers throughout history—and with people he's worked directly with throughout his career, including Richard Feynman, Steve Jobs, and Marvin Minsky.
Stephen Wolfram's Idea Makers is a thoroughly engaging collection of essays that provides a uniquely personal perspective on the lives and achievements of a selection of intriguing figures from the history of science and technology. The list of people profiled includes (alphabetically) George Boole, Richard Crandall, Richard Feynman, Kurt Gödel, Solomon Golomb, Steve Jobs, Gottfried Leibniz, Ada Lovelace, Benoit Mandelbrot, Marvin Minsky, John von Neumann, Bertrand Russell, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Russell Towle, Alan Turing, and Alfred Whitehead.
Idea Makers is the first book that Wolfram has presented to a general audience since the publication of his groundbreaking bestseller A NEW KIND OF SCIENCE (also published by Wolfram Media) received prominent coverage in virtually every major publication throughout the world in 2002.
Weaving together his immersive interest in people and history with insights gathered from his own experiences, Wolfram gives an ennobling look at some of the individuals whose ideas and creations have helped shape our world today.
From his recollections about working with "rock star" physicists like Richard Feynman to his insights about how Alan Turing's work has unleashed generations of innovation, and to why Ada Lovelace's role in the history of computing is far more pivotal than she's received credit for, Wolfram takes the reader into the minds and lives of great thinkers and creators of the past few centuries and shows how great achievements can arise from dramatically different personalities and life trajectories.
Readers of Idea Makers will also discover:
• What Steve Jobs's early and ardent support of Mathematica (he was the one who pressed Wolfram to call it Mathematica) meant to its development.
• Why Wolfram believes that we're poised for a dramatic shift in science and technology that will make Kurt Godel's theorem the defining theme of science and technology in the twenty-first century.
• Why Wolfram's intellectual interests have an eerie parallel with Alan Turing's throughout his career and how Turing's work has repeatedly helped form the conceptual basis for what Wolfram has done in his career.
• The deep wisdom Wolfram gained through working with mentors, including Marvin Minsky and Richard Feynman, and his gratitude toward Feynman for spending a great deal of time and care on advice that Wolfram wasn't always willing to take.
• Great anecdotes that underscore the irrepressible nature of Feynman and why he chose to have dinner with people like EST founder Werner Erhard, why it was impossible to guess which way the wind was blowing with the otherwise logical Benoit Mandelbrot, and the true peril of riding in the back seat of a car driven by Marvin Minsky who, Wolfram amusingly observes, had "no apparent concern to the actual process of driving".
• Wolfram's insights into why John von Neumann just came close to making a remarkable number of the twentieth century's most important mathematics-related discoveries.
• Wolfram's take on some of sci/tech's great urban myths, like von Neumann being the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick's iconic Dr. Strangelove character, and Gödel's assertion that the German government suppressed Leibniz's great discoveries for centuries.
Idea Makers has a beautifully curated selection of images from original texts, handwritten notes, and illustrations, showing pages of computations, insightful letters and eye-opening schematics.
From Stephen Wolfram, one of the world's most recognized leaders in science and technology and the author of the groundbreaking bestseller A NEW KIND OF SCIENCE (more than 100,000 copies in print), comes an enlightening, thoroughly engaging collection of essays that examine the lives and work of great thinkers throughout history—and with people he's worked directly with throughout his career, including Richard Feynman, Steve Jobs, and Marvin Minsky.
Stephen Wolfram's Idea Makers is a thoroughly engaging collection of essays that provides a uniquely personal perspective on the lives and achievements of a selection of intriguing figures from the history of science and technology. The list of people profiled includes (alphabetically) George Boole, Richard Crandall, Richard Feynman, Kurt Gödel, Solomon Golomb, Steve Jobs, Gottfried Leibniz, Ada Lovelace, Benoit Mandelbrot, Marvin Minsky, John von Neumann, Bertrand Russell, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Russell Towle, Alan Turing, and Alfred Whitehead.
Idea Makers is the first book that Wolfram has presented to a general audience since the publication of his groundbreaking bestseller A NEW KIND OF SCIENCE (also published by Wolfram Media) received prominent coverage in virtually every major publication throughout the world in 2002.
Weaving together his immersive interest in people and history with insights gathered from his own experiences, Wolfram gives an ennobling look at some of the individuals whose ideas and creations have helped shape our world today.
From his recollections about working with "rock star" physicists like Richard Feynman to his insights about how Alan Turing's work has unleashed generations of innovation, and to why Ada Lovelace's role in the history of computing is far more pivotal than she's received credit for, Wolfram takes the reader into the minds and lives of great thinkers and creators of the past few centuries and shows how great achievements can arise from dramatically different personalities and life trajectories.
Readers of Idea Makers will also discover:
• What Steve Jobs's early and ardent support of Mathematica (he was the one who pressed Wolfram to call it Mathematica) meant to its development.
• Why Wolfram believes that we're poised for a dramatic shift in science and technology that will make Kurt Godel's theorem the defining theme of science and technology in the twenty-first century.
• Why Wolfram's intellectual interests have an eerie parallel with Alan Turing's throughout his career and how Turing's work has repeatedly helped form the conceptual basis for what Wolfram has done in his career.
• The deep wisdom Wolfram gained through working with mentors, including Marvin Minsky and Richard Feynman, and his gratitude toward Feynman for spending a great deal of time and care on advice that Wolfram wasn't always willing to take.
• Great anecdotes that underscore the irrepressible nature of Feynman and why he chose to have dinner with people like EST founder Werner Erhard, why it was impossible to guess which way the wind was blowing with the otherwise logical Benoit Mandelbrot, and the true peril of riding in the back seat of a car driven by Marvin Minsky who, Wolfram amusingly observes, had "no apparent concern to the actual process of driving".
• Wolfram's insights into why John von Neumann just came close to making a remarkable number of the twentieth century's most important mathematics-related discoveries.
• Wolfram's take on some of sci/tech's great urban myths, like von Neumann being the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick's iconic Dr. Strangelove character, and Gödel's assertion that the German government suppressed Leibniz's great discoveries for centuries.
Idea Makers has a beautifully curated selection of images from original texts, handwritten notes, and illustrations, showing pages of computations, insightful letters and eye-opening schematics.
Idea Makers: Personal Perspectives on the Lives & Ideas of Some Notable People
250
Idea Makers: Personal Perspectives on the Lives & Ideas of Some Notable People
250Hardcover
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781579550035 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Wolfram Media, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 07/07/2016 |
| Pages: | 250 |
| Sales rank: | 1,118,376 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d) |