Did anyone read Discover Mag Jan. 2003?

There's this guy Stephen Wolfram who says we've been doing science all wrong. (He wrote a book which is selling like hotcakes called A New Kind of Science.

We shouldn't describe the world in terms of equations. We should instead look at what programs do.

This, he thinks, will tell us a lot about complexity. (Chaos theory's Berry doesn't agree, nor does complex biology's Robert May.)

Anyhow, I can't figure out what he's talking about. All I can think about is the Fibonacci series of numbers, which you can program in a few lines, and the examples (how cells multiply as stems grow and flowers petal out) we see in nature that says nature knows the Fibonacci series.

Is that the sort of thing he means?

If not that, what?

Oh,
interesting info there BT.

Lemme check it out and then I'll get back to you.
Pin~Jinx / anarchist

I haven't actually read the book, but everyone who I've heard from who has has been extremely disappointed. He claimed that the book would revolutionize science and everyone has said that there isn't an original idea in the whole book.

Thank you Methos. What a relief! I don't know if I can keep discarding old facts at my current rate any longer and still continue to bother thinking at all.