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Ask HN: Is there a highly condensed version of the book “A New kind of Science”?

2 points by real-hacker ↗ HN
I heard there are some insights in the NKS book, but the 1100 pages filled with a big ego is really not worth my time. Is there a condensed version of this book, or maybe a better book for cellular automata?

3 comments

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brudgers
In my opinion, there is not a better book on Wolfram's ideas than Wolfram's. The text is very readable. The illustrations are sharp and clear. The coverage of the topic is comprehensive. Wolfram's book reflects many years of hard work writing.
real-hacker
Thanks. But I read some really negative review of the book in HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1713352. And the first Chapter talks about revolution and solving every problem, which sounds like exaggeration.
brudgers
Bashing Wolfram's personality is an easy way to get attention on the internet. Most people who do so did not study with Feynman, build software that altered the way scientists are able to use mathematics, or build and run a successful bootstrapped technology company for three decades. Or write a book explaining a sophisticated original idea.

My hunch is that Wolfram's work shares some sort of fundamental mathematical relationship to current advances in machine learning using neural networks. Independent of my hunch, I don't deny that Wolfram could be wrong. But I believe there is a non-trivial possibility that he is on to something important even though it may not be apparent for many years. This was the case with Boole.

There are plenty of excuses not to read his book and most people don't. Not reading doesn't prevent talking about it and joining when people are bashing Wolfram.

Good luck.