
Wolfram blocked publication of a mathematical proof with a court order - mavdi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110#The_proof_of_universality
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CaliforniaKarl
Please help me understand this.

If I understand this correctly, the Wikipedia snippet is saying that Mr. Cook
developed this theory while under a related NDA with Wolfram Research; and
that by publishing a paper, Mr. Cook violated that NDA. The paper in question,
the conference, and the injunction blocking publication all happened in 2015.

If I understand that correctly, then should this post be marked "(2015)"?

Also, this seems to me to be a rather run-of-the-mill NDA violation case. The
only things making it more more noteable is it being an NDA related to math,
and how one of the parties involved is Wolfram Research. Otherwise, this seems
to me to be like any NDA involving a technology company, and HN has seen
discussions on over-broad NDAs recently.

Finally, I'm not liking the quality of the Wikipedia article: I'd appreciate
more information, and maybe links to court documents!

~~~
jamesblonde
This all went down in the late 90s. Basically, Wolfram had been employing a
lot of people to continue the basic research he did in the early 1980s on
cellular automata. Wolfram's claim-to-fame is that he discovered 4 classes of
cellular automata (random, stable, periodic, complex). I claim he took these
straight off nobel-prize winner Ilya Prigogine who identified these 4 classes
for far-from-equilibrium thermodynamic systems - see Nicolis paper (figure 1):
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC388547/pdf/pnas...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC388547/pdf/pnas00060-0162.pdf).
(Nicolis was Prigogine's student).

Anyway, Wolfram thought he was on to something really big (meaning-of-life
type big). But he also founded Mathematica, thought - "hey, i'll just get rich
first". And like Jeff Hawkins who put his Palm Pilot money into his first love
of brain research, Wolfram funded basic research on cellular automata. And
Wolfram wanted the scientific credit for that basic research - hence the NDAs.
Now artists (like Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst) have been doing this
successfully for years - taking credit for their employees art. Wolfram
reckoned he could do the same. But Mr Cook thought otherwise. Fair play to
Cook, I say. It's a very interesting exercise, because there's nothing Wolfram
can do now. Cook was the one who made the discovery and he told us so. Wolfram
wants to undo that, but with the Internet, he can't.

Regarding the actual discovery. It's significance is that it shows us how very
simple rules and interactions can produce something complex and regular (a
universal Turing machine) upon which intelligent systems can be built. Given
that the brain is almost certainly not a universal Turing machine, I believe
that Wolfram over-estimated the long-term historical significance of the
discovery.

~~~
unlikelymordant
How is the brain not a universal turing machine? Is there a task that turing
machines can do that brains can't? It has been shown that rnns are turing
complete [1] so it is certainly believable that brains are

[1] [http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/220907/meaning-
of-a...](http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/220907/meaning-of-and-proof-
of-rnn-can-approximate-any-algorithm)

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
I think the key detail is that the brain is actually more powerful than a
turing machine, as demonstrated by our ability to solve halting problems

~~~
muricula
I'm not sure this is correct at all. Turing machines can solve certain subsets
of the halting problem (i.e does a given program without recursion and with
only certain types of loops halt?), but it's impossible to create an algorithm
which will say whether _any_ program halts. I see no reason why the Human
brain would be able to solve the halting problem, or even any problem a Turing
machine can't.

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dataphyte
Newton wasn't above abusing his position as head of the Royal Society to
discredit Leibniz. Wolfram reminds me of Newton—a self-conscious genius,
exceedingly jealous of his intellectual primacy. I think Wolfram even compares
NKS to Newton's Principia on the book's dust jacket if I recall.

~~~
awinter-py
newton stuck a knitting needle in his eye to find out where colors come from

~~~
mattnewton
He didn't do a bad job at that.

He also wrote over 100 books on alchemy (that he didn't publish because it
would have been illegal to practice), tried to predict the apocalypse from the
Bible, predicted a Jewish repopulation is Jerusalem from similar crazy bible
numerologies, and, because he saw himself as a priest of the natural world,
never married.

~~~
jacquesm
I could not help but note your last name...

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username223
For any of you who haven't read it, Cosma Shalizi's review of ANKoS seems
relevant:
[http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/](http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/)

------
swayvil
When scientists chase dollars it's double-ugly.

