A new kind of software

Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science is a mind-blowing book. Not that I've read it -- I'm perhaps 50 pages in, a mere grain in the sandbox of this monster tome. But already I've been overwhelmed as Wolfram explains that every scientist before him has gotten it all wrong, and his notions will revolutionize not only physics and chemistry, but economics, sociology, and psychology, too. (My marginal note to myself: Cojones.)

In a nutshell, Wolfram's thesis is that nature can't be described by a bunch of equations. In the real world, processes interact -- and each come away changed. Algorithms make a better worldmeme. Wolfram posits that just about anything can be explained by the interaction of a few simple programs.

If that's all there were to it, Wolfram might have a shot at surpassing Hawking's Brief History of Time for the least read popular book ever published. But today on Wolfram's web site, I happened upon The New Science Explorer.

The Explorer is software that lets you perform Wolfram's experiments as you read along. Wow! For $65, you can follow the original research. I ordered a copy immediately. Maybe when I retire to a desert island, I'll have time to work my way through all of Wolfram's work. This is the way science should be learned!