Stephen Wolfram Q&A

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Some collected questions and answers by Stephen Wolfram

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November 4, 2019

From: Interview by Margaret Harris, Physics World

What are some examples of ways that thinking computationally, rather than mathematically, about a system can aid understanding?

For 300 years mathematical equations were the dominant method used to make models of things. In just the last decade or so, there’s been a kind of silent revolution in modeling, and new models of almost any concept or system—regardless of whether it is physical, engineering, social, biological—have started to be based on computation (and effectively, programs) rather than mathematical equations. It’s quite a paradigm shift, which is why I called my big book on the subject A New Kind of Science.

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