Stephen Wolfram Q&A
Submit a questionSome collected questions and answers by Stephen Wolfram
Questions may be edited for brevity; see links for full questions.
Just Curious...
(42)February 6, 1998
From: Interview by David Stork, Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality
If I calculated correctly, 2001: A Space Odyssey must have come out when you were nine years old. Did you see it then?
Definitely. In fact, it was my favorite movie, and I ended up seeing it quite a few times.
February 6, 1998
From: Interview by David Stork, Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality
What was it that you liked about 2001: A Space Odyssey?
All the technology. It had such a rich rendering of technology. So bright and attractive. I followed the US space program quite a bit in those days, but I was always disappointed when I realized that the inside of a spacecraft was just the size of a closet. In 2001 there were masses of technology, Read more
February 6, 1998
From: Interview by David Stork, Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality
Did you identify with any of the characters in 2001: A Space Odyssey?
Not really. At the time, I was young, and they all seemed quite old, and very American. Growing up in England, all that “Roger your plan to go EVA” stuff seemed pretty foreign to me. I guess I didn’t ever imagine talking jargon like that. One thing, though, was that I definitely was very interested in one day being able to interact with the kind of technology that was in the movie. Read more
February 6, 1998
From: Interview by David Stork, Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality
What struck you most about 2001: A Space Odyssey watching it now, in your adulthood?
Well, it seemed a lot shorter than when I was a kid. It also seemed to make a lot more sense. I guess I now at least think I understand how all the pieces are supposed to fit together. And they really raise some very interesting questions. But let’s talk about that later. Read more
February 6, 1998
From: Interview by David Stork, Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality
What did you think about the computers in 2001: A Space Odyssey?
Well, let’s talk about the ordinary ones—not HAL—for now. It’s really fascinating what was predicted correctly there, and what wasn’t. There was one definite major conceptual mistake, I think, that had to do with misassessing the power of software, and that pervaded a lot of the things that weren’t got right. Read more
February 6, 1998
From: Interview by David Stork, Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality
What kind of thing would make us sure we had detected extraterrestrial intelligence? What about receiving the digits of pi?
Well, that’s a tough one, for two reasons. First, how would we know that there was a complicated intentional intelligence generating those digits? You see, I’ve found some very simple systems that generate things like the digits of pi. Systems so simple that we could easily imagine they’d occur naturally, without intentional intelligence. Read more
February 6, 1998
From: Interview by David Stork, Hal's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality
Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelligence out there?
Oh, I’m sure there are lots and lots of systems that can do computations as sophisticated as working out the digits of pi. We’ve got lots right here on Earth. But we don’t call them intelligent. Even though some of them seem to “have a mind of their own”—like the weather. Read more
April 7, 2003
From: Interview by The Scientist Magazine
Why haven’t you read all the reviews of A New Kind of Science?
There are a lot of them, and they’re not all that interesting.
April 7, 2003
From: Interview by The Scientist Magazine
Do you get bored easily?
I tend not to do things I find boring… If I think the things I’m doing are pointless, I try to stop doing them as quickly as possible. Figuring out new things is what I like doing most.
April 7, 2003
From: Interview by The Scientist Magazine
Are you modest?
Different people have different opinions on that. It’s hard to see from the inside. Certainly I am a person who values truth over modesty. For example, in my book I chose to talk quite explicitly about the importance of some of my ideas and discoveries, because without that, it would be much more difficult for people to get a correct handle on where these fit in. Read more
May 29, 2009
From: Interview by Monica Attard, ABC Local
What do your children make of what you do?
Well, at least three of them are quite avid users [of the Wolfram Language], and in the development of Wolfram|Alpha they’ve been mightily amused by many of the bugs. One of them was particularly taken with the moment where if you typed in “elephant”, it wasn’t talking about the species, it somehow got confused about a thing called Elephant Island that’s somewhere near Antarctica. Read more
May 14, 2012
From: Reddit AMA
What is your favorite fruit?
You really want to know? 🙂
Actually, right at this moment I have a little tub of raspberries that I am consuming.
I happen to be quite a fruit enthusiast… in fact, every day I end up eating some raspberries, pineapple, strawberries, grapes and usually an apple. (OK, that’s surely more than you wanted to know 🙂 )
And one more thing: I don’t end up going into grocery stores very often (modern times; Read more
May 14, 2012
From: Reddit AMA
Can you list some of your favorite books?
I have altogether about 4000 physical books, though I pretty much stopped buying new ones a decade ago. (There’s actually a list of many of my books, as “NKS references” at https://www.wolframscience.com/reference/books/.)
On my desk I have to say I have only one book: A New Kind of Science. Read more
May 14, 2012
From: Reddit AMA
If you had to fight a dinosaur to the death in a Dinosaur Death Match using only primitive weapons and not allowed to set traps, what’s the biggest dinosaur you think you win against? You don’t have to name a specific dinosaur, just give us a size reference.
Sadly, I think I would probably lose against anything with serious teeth…
May 14, 2012
From: Reddit AMA
If you were forced to pick a five-year period from history to be sent back to, what period would you pick? Your arrival date will be randomly picked from the five-year period, meaning that you will arrive somewhere in the five-year period. Also this is a one-way trip, and there will be no return to the present. You can only bring with you what you can carry and already have access to, meaning anything you already own or can buy within one hour (budget limited to your current holdings) that you can carry.
Well… I’m not sure how well I’d do before modern candy and other comforts 🙂
I guess I’d want to bring a computer and everything needed to repair it. Not sure I could fit a generator. So it’d have to be some time after electricity…
Heck… this is a weird hypothetical question. Read more
April 26, 2013
From: Interview by Patrick Tucker, IEET
Where do you see yourself in 10 years? And what do you see yourself having accomplished 10 years from now?
Well, that’s an interesting question. My gosh. That’s the kind of question one’s supposed to ask at a job interview. I never ask those, because I always figure that they’re silly questions. I’m hoping I’ll do a few new things. We’ll see. For the last decade, Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha were my main activities. Read more
February 23, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
Currently: banana if available. Otherwise chocolate.
(That was easy…) Read more
February 23, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
What kind of games do you play, digital or analog?
I’m not really into games at all, and never have been.
Somehow whenever I’m exposed to games I end up thinking “in the time I spend playing this game, I could be building something or doing something that isn’t a game”. I guess the point for me is that I really like building and doing things, Read more
February 23, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
When are you going back to Hollywood with a show like Numb3rs?
We certainly didn’t create the Numb3rs TV show, but some people at our company had a lot of fun providing math for each episode and the website about all that is still up: http://numb3rs.wolfram.com/ I personally haven’t done as much with Hollywood as I might because I find the high noise-to-signal ratio that tends to exist there very difficult to deal with. Read more
February 23, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
Which superhero from Marvel do you find most scientifically realistic?
I have seen a bunch of Marvel movies… but I’m no expert on the whole array of superheroes….
What’s ultimately possible is always an interesting question. There are plenty of things that get done even though they supposedly “violate the laws of physics”. (I remember when people said that data would never be transmitted on copper wires faster than 1200 baud… Read more
February 23, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
What do you miss about England that America doesn’t immediately offer?
The candy 🙂 And now there’s even a ban on the import of some British candy to the US.
When I was growing up in England I was always frustrated by what seemed like an irrational level of respect for older people there. And I often said that England would be a good place to be older in, Read more
February 23, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
When will Skynet be ready?
Wolfram|Alpha seems to have at least something to say: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=are+you+skynet
February 23, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
I have a very important question that many of my colleagues wish to have answered: Would you rather fight 100 duck sized horses, or 1 horse sized duck? How might you use Mathematica to answer this intelligently?
I’m certainly no expert on fighting … but here’s how I might approach the problem. Basically I would want to make models of these creatures—their mechanics, and if possible their behaviors. I know Mathematica has been used a bunch to model quadruped mechanics (e.g. for dinosaurs in movies, and real things). Read more
February 23, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
What are your plans and goals for the future?
Oh, so many. Right now a lot of things that make use of the Wolfram Language technology stack. Understanding how to use it to teach computational thinking, to do software development, etc. Then using it (as I have for nearly 30 years now) to develop more technology (AI-related things, etc. etc.) I always maintain a stack of projects that I’m interested in. Read more
February 23, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
What is your go-to dinner when you are too tired to make anything else?
Hmmm… I’m not really one for food construction; it’s perhaps embarrassing how few times in my life I’ve made any nontrivial foodform. My default thing to eat tends to be chocolate or fruit…
February 23, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
Do you feel you have “slowed down” at all over the years? How do you feel about nootropics or other potential solutions for maintaining or even improving cognitive function?
So far, I’m happy to say that I feel like I’m speeding up rather than slowing down. I’ve progressively learned more and more over the years about how to figure things out, and how to get things done. It probably helps that I have a pretty good memory, so in a first approximation I remember everything I’ve ever learned. Read more
July 20, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
Everyone likes to point out the scientific inconsistencies in sci-fi movies & TV shows (e.g., completely ignoring the laws of physics). But what do filmmakers miss when they portray scientists and innovators themselves?
I’m often quite shocked at how bad the portrayals of science are even in high-budget movies. Sometimes I can see that getting the science wrong is necessary in order to have the story work. But often the bad science seems to be quite gratuitous. And I have to believe that for extremely little extra effort there’d be an extra market for these movies etc. Read more
November 7, 2016
From: Interview by Dingyu Chen, Eton Magazine
Hypothetically, if you could choose two fields of math, physics or computing to be magically fully researched, which ones would you choose, and why?
I’d like to know the fundamental theory of physics: what’s underneath space and time and quantum mechanics and all the other things we know in physics today.
I’m not sure if you’d quite call it “computing”, but I’d like to know how to capture human concepts in a precise symbolic way that one can compute with. Read more
November 21, 2016
From: Interview by Sarah Lewin, Space.com
How were you approached to work on the movie Arrival?
Because a lot of scientists use our software systems and we produce a lot of interesting graphics, we have a pretty regular stream of requests from moviemakers of various kinds saying, “Can we show this graphic in our movie”. This one was kind of amusing, because it was like—we’re about to start shooting this fairly big-budget movie, Read more
March 8, 2017
From: Interview by John Horgan, Scientific American
What is the most meaningful goal that any intelligence, human or inhuman, can pursue?
The notion of a “meaningful goal” is something that relies on a whole cultural context—so there can’t be a useful abstract answer to this question.
March 8, 2017
From: Interview by John Horgan, Scientific American
Have you ever suspected that God exists, or that we live in a simulation?
If by “God” you just mean something beyond science: well, there’s always going to be something beyond science until we have a complete theory of the universe, and even then, we may well still be asking, “Why this universe, and not another?”
What would it mean for us to “live in a simulation”? Read more
March 8, 2017
From: Interview by John Horgan, Scientific American
What’s your utopia?
If you mean: what do I personally want to do all day? Well, I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been able to set up my life to let me spend a large fraction of my time doing what I want to be doing, which usually means creating things and figuring things out. Read more
May 29, 2018
From: Interview by Byron Reese, Gigaom.com
Do you still say thank you to the automatic ticket thing when you leave the parking garage?
Yes, to my children’s great amusement. I have made a principle of doing that for a long time.
March 4, 2019
From: Reddit AMA
Do you ever use the alias “Stephen Tungsten”?
No. But it’s always nice to have an immediate “favorite element”…
July 24, 2019
From: Interview by Will Carey, Creative Chair
More recently there seems to have been an increase in filmmakers who want their projects to have a sound scientific foundation. Do you think that this is important, and if so why?
I always think it’s nice when a movie lets one engage intellectually as well as emotionally, and having a sound “science story” is a way to help achieve this. I think filmmakers often assume that the science will get in the way of the story they want to tell. But for me it’s just that one has to be creative about the science as well as about everything else in the movie. Read more
July 24, 2019
From: Interview by Will Carey, Creative Chair
Do you think that the logograms in the movie Arrival were the most appropriate output for the alien language, or, if you had been in involved at an earlier stage, would you have suggested an alternative design?
I think the logograms looked very nice. If we’d been involved earlier then, yes, we might have suggested slightly different ways to assemble them from grammatical parts. But I don’t think people watching the movie (as opposed to picking apart every frame!) would have noticed the difference.
July 24, 2019
From: Interview by Will Carey, Creative Chair
Could the Wolfram code be used to assign meaning to the Arrival logograms effectively be used to assign meanings to any shapes?
No—because there can’t be a general way to do this. Think about the shapes we see in the natural world. What “meaning” do they have? Or think about shapes we see in archaeology. We often don’t know when they were “ornamental”, and when they were “functional”. There is no abstract way to associate meaning with a shape. Read more
July 24, 2019
From: Interview by Will Carey, Creative Chair
If you died and got reincarnated as a song, what would that song be?
Hmmm. I’m guessing my brain has 100 trillion or so synaptic weights, that encode my memories, etc. And I suppose you could transmit those, even as music, though at least for now they’d be pretty hard to reconstruct as “me”. My scientific work, particularly around my Principle of Computational Equivalence, has led me to believe that a wide range of things, Read more
December 6, 2019
From: Interview by Jeff D’Alessio, The News-Gazette (unpublished)
What can’t you live without?
The technology I’ve built! The biggest part of that is the Wolfram Language. I originally started building the precursor of what’s now the Wolfram Language back in 1979—because I wanted to use it. And for more than three decades I’ve used it for many many things every day. And it’s not only been a practical tool for me to create technology, Read more
December 6, 2019
From: Interview by Jeff D’Alessio, The News-Gazette (unpublished)
What’s the last luxury you indulged in?
I like to maximize my productivity, so I get all kinds of things to help with that. An example is that I have various computers, of different sizes, that I can use in different places or different circumstances. I wrote a long piece about this kind of thing recently: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-productive-life-some-details-of-my-personal-infrastructure
December 16, 2019
From: Interview by Jeff D’Alessio, The News-Gazette
In what ways are you frugal?
Because I’m in the tech business, I tend to always get the latest of every tech gadget. But when it comes to other things, I tend to keep them a long time. I just bought a new car, but my last one I had for a decade.
December 18, 2019
From: Interview by Guy Kawasaki, Remarkable People Podcast
Who’s the smartest person you ever met?
I don’t rank people by smartness. You’ve got to realize the question of… if it was the case that everything that came up somebody else could figure out and then that everything you think about, somebody else is there in front of you, able to figure it out. Then you’d say, Read more