America's Clown Colleges Fight For Funding, Respect
>>Tuesday August 06, 2002
Wolfram Introduces "A New Kind of Scientology"
PODUNK, WISCONSIN- Stephen Wolfram earned his Ph.D. at the tender age of 19. He made millions creating Mathematica, a software application that only people nearly as smart as himself would ever need or understand. Now Wolfram has come up with something he thinks will be this decade's answer to the pet rock: cellular automata. Clearly, anything that would cause a supergenius like Wolfram to sequester himself for nearly a decade must be pretty cool- better than "cool" something like that must be the most incredible thing ever thought by a sentient being in the history of the pan-dimensional cosmos.
In truth, cellular automata are not exactly new. Math/CS double majors have been twiddling around with the pretty patterns since the advent of the Atari 2600. However, Wolfram's publisher decided the more apt original title A Fairly Recent Kind of Math lacked the requisite sex appeal to excite the mass market. This marketing approach, combined with Wolfram's own fanatical following, have given rise to what looks like a new religion based on his work with automata: Scientography.
Avid readers with too much time on their hands have claimed to see all sorts of bizarre items while exploring class 3 and 4 automata [see fig. 2]. These include images of Jesus, Elvis, crop circle designs, the words "Paul (Erd?s) is Dead", and Jesus in an Elvis jumpsuit.
[If you dare, you can examine a set of 256 simple cellular automata for yourself at an extra geeky portion of this website. For the interests of safety, this page has been separated from the rest of the site and his served on a souped-up TRS-80.]
Here is a basic outline of the book's structure as well as his underlying argument:
Relatively simple cellular automata can generate incredible complexity.
Such complexity does not necessarily increase when the underlying rules are made more complex.
!
Profit!
Followers of Scientography say that the secrets of the universe, mind of God, and several hundred winning lottery numbers are hidden in the book's myriad patterns.
At the very least, the five-inch-thick tome makes a great trebuchet counterweight.
"Either this thing is the biggest load of bullshit since Teapot Dome or it is the most significant scientific document in the last two hundred years," said office supply manager Chuck Babbage as he picked up his copy at an area Barnes & Noble. "I decided that $50 was a small price to pay to find out."
Pete Fermat, a student at Podunk Community College, could hardly contain his excitement. "The most significant revelations in human history are contained in a book inaccessible to people without an advanced degree and high-end computer power. I bet everyone who beat me up in junior high school is sorry now. Math touchdowns for everyone!"
This ravishing admiration for the book is by no means universal. Debates continue to rage on Internet message boards, each with similar results. Anyone who calls shenanigans on Wolfram's work is immediately accused of having not read the whole book, and since so few have managed to defeat the 1200 page butt-killer, Wolfram's proponents usually rule the day.
Recently critics have begun to ask Wolfram questions he seems ill prepared to answer. During a recent talk radio program, the author seemed to lose his normally serene demeanor.
Caller: I was wondering. I've slogged through the first seven hundred pages and ... with all due respect, when are you going to make your point?
Wolfram: Your negativity rules your mind, doesn't it? You can't accept cellular automata because it ruins your pessimistic worldview.
Caller: Um. Okay. I just don't buy the notion that creating organic randomness is going to accomplish anything- and if it is, I wish you'd tell us.
Scientography's problems continue to grow. Part religion, part chess club, the group's official status has become a matter of debate. While lawyers and Scientography officials argue over the details, back taxes pile up. Wolfram says that he is not worried since IRS officials will likely need to borrow his software to calculate what he owes.
The picture abroad looks no better. German officials have already made it clear that they plan to ban Scientography in advance, preemptively deporting Wolfram and his associates.
5 April 2008: This just in - A researcher at Berlin's Nationalbibliothekfürwissenschaftlicheskaffeeklatschen claims that she has discovered an unpublished paper by Bruce Gödel (Kurt's brother, who after Kurt's untimely death, abandoned mathematics to form the totalitarian death-metal band 'Rammstein'). In it, Gödel concludes that 'I am, at best, undecided about the value of cellular automata in elucidating the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything, Else.' (The enigmatic Else Beilttog, a Danish cryptographer, was his lover and muse at the time of writing.) 'I just unlocked Bruce's favourite old carrel, and there it was, sitting on the table. Spooky. I mean, he's been gone for years and it's used by graduate students and research assistants daily, and cleaned weekly by the janitorial contract staff', said the researcher, who declined to be named, saying, 'No, really, I can't claim any credit for the discovery; it's all in Bruce's own handwriting and besides, it has his own very distinctive voice, which you could tell in a moment if you ever really _listened_ to a Rammstein song.' Meanwhile, a bidding war for the document is said to have started between Scientific American and Geffen Records. Watch this space for further details of this breaking story.
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