Scientists on Reddit

Stephen Wolfram

Scientist, creator of Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha

u/StephenWolfram-Real ↗AMA only

How we know it's theirs

The 2012 r/IAmA AMA, posted from this account

We retrieved 6 posts and 196 comments from u/StephenWolfram-Real, dated 2012 to 2020, most often in r/IAmA.

Best moment

A redditor wrote in r/IAmA

On “I'm Stephen Wolfram (Mathematica, NKS, Wolfram|Alpha, ...), Ask Me Anything”

What is the most interesting use of Mathematica and/or Wolfram Alpha you've ever seen?

u/StephenWolfram-Real replied

There are so many; very hard to pick just one. An old one for Mathematica: Mike Foale was using it on the Mir space station; there was an accident; the computer it was on got sucked into space; Mike had…

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There are so many; very hard to pick just one.

An old one for Mathematica: Mike Foale was using it on the Mir space station; there was an accident; the computer it was on got sucked into space; Mike had a backup disk, but needed a password for a different computer; all-time favorite call to customer service ... and finally an in-action solving of equations of motion for a spinning space station.

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More moments

A redditor wrote in r/IAmA

On “I'm Stephen Wolfram---Ask Me Anything”

Hi, Thanks for taking time to do this AMA. I have a few questions: 1) What was it like working with Richard Feynman? 2) How did you manage to start legitimate research on quantum field theory when you were only 15? 3) What are your plans and goals for the future?

u/StephenWolfram-Real replied

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Richard Feynman and I had rather different styles of solving problems ... so there was often a certain amount of "I don't understand what you're talking about" on both sides. We worked on quantum computing back around 1982 or so. He did hand calculation which I could never believe got the right answer, and I did computer calculations which he could never believe got the right answer... (In retrospect, I think we actually both got the right answers.)

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A redditor wrote in r/IAmA

On “I'm Stephen Wolfram---Ask Me Anything”

What's the craziest thing you've seen your Wolfram Alpha engine respond with, and what was the query you used? Are there any easter eggs you'd care to share with us?

u/StephenWolfram-Real replied

I sometimes think the problem is not the creation of artificial intelligence, but the avoidance of artificial stupidity... I put some of my favorites from the history of Wolfram|Alpha in http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/04/overcoming-artificial-stupidity/ E.g. "all the king's horses" used to be interpreted…

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E.g. "all the king's horses" used to be interpreted as the total horse livestock population of the world, on Elvis's birthday...

A redditor wrote in r/IAmA

On “I'm Stephen Wolfram---Ask Me Anything”

Hello Stephen, 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?

u/StephenWolfram-Real replied

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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). I'd probably start from models of the biomechanics of ducks and horses. We recently added detailed human anatomy data to the Wolfram Language and Wolfram|Alpha (see e.g. http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/HumanAnatomy.html ), and I know from that project (which took a long time) that there isn't readily available comparable data for other species. So one would have to wing it a bit (and, yes, I have no idea about models for the wings...)

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