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From: TEDtalksDirector
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  • Comment removed

  • But unfortunately the teller came back and said "Our investigative unit pulled up the fact that you've made your empire piggybacking on genuine pioneers, (Von Neumann, Zuse, Conway, Thom, Ulam, Poincaré, Einstein, etc.) all the time self-aggrandizing your importance and understating theirs. Your rating has been adjusted from "awesome" to "pompous" and you actually owe back a fair amount of respect. We're sorry, Mr. Wolfram"

  • i love seeing someone get this excited over science and discovery and stuff. it wasnt long ago that i didnt know of anyone who got so excited over that kind of stuff other than me (even though i dont understand most of it haha)......by the way wolfram alpha is AMAZING

  • There will be no excuse for being stupid in the future.

  • @Powervids123

    LOL

    are you kidding

    the double edge sword of ignorance/awareness is sharpened with every technological improvement

  • @Powervids123 I would say there is no excuse for being stupid now.

  • and so on.

    

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  • i'd like wolfram more if he wasn't the most self-promoting and arrogant man in science.

  • @Autonova agreed, the bit 5:30 - 13:00 could be summarised in about 1 min. the rest is excellent! also the arms, THE ARMS!!! HOLD THEM STILL!!!!1

  • Dat giant shirt.

  • what language is this guy speaking?

  • @BryceeTB

    English?

  • This guy is the Sheldon Cooper of real life.

  • Stephen should create a portable version of wolfram alpha, it shouldn't be exclusive to online usage, the only demerit would be unethical usage of such a powerful machine to enhance academic performance.

  • @IceDawg101 There is; it's called the Wolfram|Alpha app.

  • Rule #30: Science porn.

  • Can't believe this man took a Phd when he was 20

  • legend.

  • god is not humalike god is logiclike

  • @turbotroy6 have a look at theoreticalphysics.webs.com

  • Omg, i met this guy before, more than once and didnt know what a genius he.

  • Why do bazillionaires dress like they shop at Walmart?

  • @nunyabizness32 The reason you wont be is: that's what you care about. neanderthal dummy

  • @mattysimsoficial If you are going to call someone a neanderthal you should probably learn how to properly form a sentence and spell the words within it.

  • @nunyabizness32 Because they could give (roughly) 1/10th of a shit about fashion.

  • @nunyabizness32 because they dont fucking care

  • In summary, Stephen Wolfram intends to solve physics.

  • what would you do if you'd discover the theory of everything?

  • How good is wolfram alpha! No more math dramas!!

  • If you ever feel lonely you can just curl up with your computer and have a cuddle.

  • This is a crazy video

  • I'm scared by this technology because it may remove the need for human expertise but im also excited :/

  • thumbs up if you checked wolfram alpha again after this video

  • awesome.... something to help me with my math homework! wooot

  • @rexviper8 i thought the same thing lol

  • I think Wolfram would benefit from a touch of modesty here. The ASA has video from 1972 of remarkable graphical data visualization software developed at Stanford by the phenomenal J.W. Tukey and his colleagues. Mr. Wolfram, the software you're working on is useful, but truly, you stand on the shoulders of giants.

  • How to spot an academic from a distance: Dress pants with runners.

  • @nikanj

    was thinking the exact same thing :p

  • @nikanj Ya man your right what the hell was Wolfram thinking, he couldn't put on some shoes?

  • @nikanj House takes this as a compliment.

  • good!

  • "Computation" ?? doesn't the word "Computing" express correctly what he means to say ?

  • It's funny. He says there is no complexity as we think of. But he is trying to build his explanations around the program he created. It’s still in boundaries of program. You control only diversity inside the program. This program was not built by itself. Let see what happens if I’d change the code of program. You’d have to bring then all your imaginations to find a pattern in output. World of complexity is based on the rules made in ideal conditions.

  • @SergSpace But to get there you have to provide and constantly support these conditions like his program does drawing nothing more but the triangle in the end. To build more complex mechanism you gonna need more complex program. And itt not gonna be created by itself. The complexity is in the motive and sufficiency. What provides conditions, what leads to a certain structure, what stops a program when certain shape is taken?

  • @SergSpace He plays with tools like a child with cubes except he knows how to make more combinations. It does not explain anything.

    PS YouTube does not let to put everything in single paragraph, so the beginning starts from buttom

  • 42...So long, and thanks for all the fish!

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  • this is pure genius...i love it. figure out the universe in which we live by creating countless random ones based on simple figures...the entire universe as we know it, in it's amazing complexities is born in simplicity. imagine somebody holding a marble full of numbers and throwing into a pond and saying "go"

  • Applause to the nth power.

  • Why does he associate himself and "his idea" with the successes of many? I hate him because he associates himself with other peoples work and attempts to draw credibility to his "idea" because of it. He's a thought thief.

  • lots of fun

  • product placement

  • This guy acts like what he's talking about is brand new and unprecedented.

  • High-speed computation is a "big thing" that will enable so much in the future. However, Peter Wolfram's products, like Mathematica, are poorly conceived for heavy computation.  His insistence on symbolic computing is a huge handicap. And "cellular automata" is not some new math, really. It's interesting and fractal-like, but again, Peter is going off the rails.

  • @SphinctersForever Peter???

  • This project is very ambitious! is all i can say.

  • Awesome stuff!!

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  • Stephen Wolfram walks into a bank, says to the teller "Hello, I would like to apply for some respect." Teller responds, "Sure, Mr. Wolfram, I see you have a credit score of 'awesome,' why don't I take you back to the vault and you can handpick out as much as you can carry, just wait here a minute while I go fetch a wheel barrow."

    And that's the way it was.

  • @mrbenderson005 "Borrow? Come, here's some for free"

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  • We cant die! We have to live to see the evolution of humanity... Or destruction. =).

    I hope evolution comes first. =P

  • WE CANT DIE! we have to lieve to see the evolution of humanity... we are scratching it... ^^!

  • Why haven't I heard about Wolfram Alpha and this speaker before?! If some slut has a nice ass then sponsors will pay tens of millions of dollars making sure that chick's ass & their company product is in everyone's face. BUT, when you get something that is pure genius & it is such a triumph of science and engineering that it automatically becomes a great achievement not just for its creators but for humanity then we should all BOW down to the genius that created this. Humanity has such potential

  • @andyrooney12 its called capitalism you can't put wolfgram alpha on a product and expect people to buy it but you can put a "slut ass" metaphorically speaking on a product and sell it. Its just the way it works

  • I hope to pick up where this man may leave off, or be a student to him a few years from now. After I read "a new kind of science" I was blown away at the hypothesis that our universe can be computatable due to fractal mathematics. I just love it, I love that we are getting close to a unified theory of everything, and fractals will get us there.

  • Of all scientists, researchers, and thinkers, Stephen Wolfram has the most eccentric and, thus possible, unique set of ideas: that using conventional differential-derivative methods to achieve "the theory of everything" is likely impossible. Very bright high school students these days know much more mathematics & physics than Einstein and Newton and Leibniz, so it's not a "lack" of bright scientists that we don't have the "grand unifying theory." It's a lack of a truly innovative approach.

  • Wolfram makes a few interesting points but this is largely a crap presentation. Everything he talks about regarding automata has been done and talked about 40 years ago, with the Game of Life (look it up). I was waiting for him to stop introducing himself and his achievements but realised that this is his actual talk - plugging his new search engine. He compares himself to Galileo, and says he has the biggest idea of the century. What an arrogant dick head.

  • @Autonova, you might find his presentation on A New Kind of Science more interesting. He gave it seven years before and it centers much more on the science and less on the marketing. It´s also available on youtube.

  • @fedeetz nevermind i feel u bro

  • i idolize this man. hahaha. wolframalpha is so helpful.

  • Go to WolframAlpha and type in "why are we here", you'll love the response.

  • He takes a step back and then forward so often. I wonder if he's even aware of it. It's distracting and pointless. He needed a speech coach, despite what else he knows.

  • This video has got me thinking, however. In order to make correct calculations, you need to use the correct data, mathematics. A computer can compute mathematical results, but it doesnt seem capable of comparing real data to invalid (but computable) data. It will calculate both results without complaint, but the answer it gives could be flawed.

    Also, its strange but with all the experience i have with computers; my idea is that even pure calculations tend to bend towards chaos in the long run.

  • @JCDentonCZ You claim that "real data" is mathematical, but think about it and you'll see that is not really the case. Do fluids experience turbulence because some differential equations say so? Or does it do so because of a recurring process where each little particle of the fluid experiences some force by all neighbouring particles and recomputes (in an abstract sense) its properties?

    Symbolic math is a very HUMAN language, we use it because it provides a basis for us to understand patterns.

  • MY LORD WHAT AN INTELLIGENT MAN

  • MY LORD WHAT A SMART MAN

  • Stephen, you gave me hope.

  • He looks like he's about to pee.

  • i'm not believe on Jew guy , because I'm Palestine people ! Well I'm kidding sometimes !

  • big dreams, thats what i like about ted. I want more ted taloks like this, like it used to be. Help humanity progress.

  • I'd hate to be the programmer who had to dive into the code and fix it when it didn't compile.

  • @Bunji2k6 Compilation errors are pretty much universally easy to fix. For a compilation error to exist the compiler must have identified the error, and if you know what's wrong, it's easy to fix. Post-compilation issues are the problem. :)

  • @fuduzan5562 Ah, I have only the slightest idea of how programming works (yet), and compilation errors are the ones I'm familiar with :P But post-compilation problems would be harder to fix, I can see that.

  • This guy is so smart that i feel like a stupid monkey breed compared to him.

  • Search "mathcad" or "ptc mathcad" on "wolframalpha" and you get gibberish. Everything else you type, there is a result.

    Deliberate attempts to silence competition... a real shame indeed.

  • I admit this guy is intelligent, but he's also a fucking arrogant asshole

  • @fedeetz idiot

  • Google has always been my homepage ever since I can remember, Wolfram Alpha has become a close second in the most visited webpage I use for searching information. :)

  • This is the most amazing thing I've seen in a long time. This is human changing stuff.

  • I wonder what rule 34 is...

  • This is what the internet is for...watching ted and learning.

  • telling me the ^^ nature of nature ^^

  • Am I the only one who thinks this whole video is Wolfram bragging about how much he's accomplished?

  • wolfram alpha did all my math homework this semester, calc 2!!

  • @PAKMAN52 So you bombed the tests then?

  • @albinoman13bt

    no, i still got a B

  • Nice shirt.

  • I tried typing "theory of the universe" into WolframAlpha. I was disappointed :(

  • I'm going to call rule 34 on rule 30

  • I tried to get WolframAlpha to divide by 0.  It never responded. Hope I didn't kill it....

  • 42

  • Look at his hands. He is moving his hands like a rapper. :D

  • @Krisler12 Shit. I wish I wouldn't have read this. ROFL

    But try to remember that it's his brain we're interested in.

    Not his skills with 'them bitches' (whom he would drop like they're hot anyway).

  • What's his point? Is he talking to himself?

  • 52 people thought this was for calculating god.

  • this fucked up my brain Oo

  • Simply GENIUS!!!!

  • You could make a drinking game out of this by taking a drink every time he says "Mathematica"

  • @scruffyexaminer Every time he says "and so on".

  • How long before the notion of a creator being becomes unnecessary? The being that most believe in nowadays is a "god-of-the-gaps" that they use to patch up questions they don't have the answer to, i.e. what you can say instead of "I don't know."

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  • Stephen looked so cute and humble immediately after his talk. A funny shift from the intimidating genius behemoth mind effect.

  • Is he the guy you hear in movie previews?!?!

  • *mind is blown*

  • Galileo bought his telescope, it was a toy at the time and he just was the guy who figured it can be pointed at sky and then wrote about it before others.

  • I admire him because the term "grandiose" seems to have only positive connotations for him. He dreams big, and strives to create novelty with no constraints

  • @alcyonae In other words, he's a real scientist. He explores the possibilities without allowing his, or anyone else's, personal/cultural biases impede his exploration.

  • @Phelan666 Or even better, the ideal scientist. Scientific theories cause priming in the minds of those who study it at a deep level, and priming hinders radical deviations from the accepted teaching of the academic world. It takes great practice, experience, creativity and favorable environments to become an ideal scientist. When such conditions arise, the scientist is usually too old/involved into family care or administrative businesses. Hence ideal scientists with the right mindset are rare

  • @alcyonae sounds like ass kissing to me....

  • @titiluanco your vulgar idiom implies that the subject, me, intentionally attempts to ingratiate the object, Wolfram.

    ?! Can you identify your fallacy?

  • @titiluanco jelly much?

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  • @mikeyo1234

    Were you looking up the latest quotes of Justin Bieber?

    Perhaps if you were solving differential equations or performing quaternion algebra you might enjoy some of the free, universally available functionality uniquely provided by wolframalpha.

  • @dusktreader13 E = (Justin Bieber)^2

    :)

  • @alcyonae novelty? According to wolfram, the 4th noun definition for novelty says that the word means 'showy and cheap.' Not the most precise description of his dreams and projects.

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  • Benoit died. Sad.

  • What an incredible genius.

  • nice wolfram alpha laptop

  • Very interesting subject. Stephen needs to work on his gestures and public speaking skills though.

  • this guy is a god!!! or really close haha

  • @I was one of the very first beta testers for mathematica and I can tell you he's a nice guy but a total crank .

    badmouth Zuse and made him out to be crazy. Not nice.

  • The brain on this guy is the size of planet... a big one

  • WolframAlpha doesn't work - I didn't get a proper answer to the folloing... "what numbers will win the lotto this week"

  • @MultiJasonJasonJason Actually, Wolfram|Alpha takes the whole thing deeper, as it can very well give you the odds of winning and hence making you see, how pointless it is to be part of that Ponzi scheme ;)

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  • holy shit...

  • His clothes are ill-fitting and wrinkled, he's poorly-dressed (who wears sneakers with formal clothes ?) but he's one of the most brilliant people on the planet

  • @mozart20dlubos this is because brilliant people realize that there are more important things than whether it is acceptable to wear brown with green...not saying you have to be a slob but matching all of your clothes and keeping them up to the standards of the newest fashion is simply a waist of time in the minds of the brilliant

  • @mozart20dlubos Who gives a shit if he's dressed well? He's doing insane computational things. I wouldn't care either.

  • universal computation.  Aww yeah.

  • I like his sneakers.

  • what a tool

  • Quack quack quack. This guy is a total quack.

  • wow...to make that sort of search engine :O

  • this guy is probably the biggest dork on earth

  • @quaxk lol

  • Just checked out the Wolfram music generator. Never been so disappointed.

    It sounds like the demo songs on the £3 keyboard i had as a kid.

  • Basically, anyone that didn't cock their head and say "what?" Within the first two minutes of this video is way too credulous. But, 50% of U.S. citizens actively use alternative medicine, so I wouldn't expect them to see the red flags of bullshit here.

  • By this I am referring to his theories of everything and that the universe is a computer program thing.

  • Well, apparently he's gone crazy. He's about a quarter inch from saying he mathematically proved gods exist. Which, to me, means he's way down the path of delusion. "Computational Irreducibility"? Is he Michael Behe now? 20 years in academic seclusion and he finally comes out to give us exactly what we'd expect from intellectual seclusion. He first gave this talk at CalTech to a board of prestigious physicist and mathemeticians. They basically said it's garbage. He's provided nothing.

  • @TheThomaswastaken Not exactly sure if it helps if you just stick a fairytale sticker on his ideas and say: "Oh that looks to me like creationist BS, so we end the discussion here and no longer think about it". He invented a hypothesis on how the universe may work and we better use the scientific method to decide if he is on the right path and not just your opinion. The same thing for string theory, loop quantum gravity and all the other fancy examples of this exciting search.

  • It would not surprise me to learn that in the basement of his office complex is a sentient extension of Wolfram Alpha that he converses with every day.

  • @GreyGeek77 lol

  • I just listened to Stephen's presentation at the H+ Summit. Poor guy kept getting interrupted.

    Perhaps my attention was directed elsewhere at a key moment, but one unclear point is, exactly how does one search the computational universe? Obviously, Wolfram writes them in Mathematica, but what types of algorithms are used to search for algorithms?

  • @DCWhatthe well one can build a computational entity say like an automaton or using a grammar. These also can be predefined rules using checks that expand. He is all about cellular automata which is a type of automaton. You can build sets of bits with them usually.

  • @Entertainmentwf - Yep, all true. But I wish that Stephen would share some of the specifics, assuming they are not proprietary.

  • This man is a genius.

  • I should add, the book to search in amazon is "A new kind of science".

  • I revere this man.

  • I revere this man.

  • I revere this man.

  • Pfft he basically combined Wikipedia and a CAS calculator.

  • @KraljevicPavle

    yes pfff 

  • @KraljevicPavle not quite. That is a huge insult to his programs.  His programs like Mathematica do so many things. They are almost like IDE's for computational mathematical programs.

  • <333333333333 wolfram

  • Wolfram Alpha = Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy!

  • The WolframAlpha thing is no doubt something pretty original, but the underlying computation (and the idea that from simple rules, complexity can arise) is nothing new. I don't know why he would said he needed to create a whole 'new science' to understand it. He wasn't the first to come up with these ideas, so he's being pretty arrogant really (didn't like the comparison's between himself and Galileo either).

  • @jonnoboyd You are right. Galileo is way better than Steve. What a fool to compare himself to another person; does he think he is more important or something?

    Oh the fucking irony. I love you fellow humans.

  • Where the 'fuck' is the irony?