26 June 2002

Pinto's Point: A new kind of science

By Jim Pinto

You’ve probably played with cellular automata on your computer -- for example, the game Life, where patterns develop as cells change color based on simple rules. And perhaps you’ve enjoyed viewing Mandelbrot fractals, a variety of complex and intricate patterns generated from simple formulas.

Beyond just pleasing patterns, these are segments of Chaos Theory, also known as Complexity Science. This is the study of how order inevitably emerges from chaos and how all systems—natural and created—innately seem to crave and develop efficiency and organization.

Now a new book may be the catalyst that will finally bring this science to the forefront of the new century. Stephen Wolfram, founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, the company that sells Mathematica, has just published A New Kind of Science. The 1,280-page volume is a best-seller—unusual for a text of arcane theory.

Wolfram presents what he describes as “dramatic discoveries” based on his experiments with cellular automata, demonstrating that virtually everything—the patterns on seashells, the ticks of financial markets, even the universe itself—is the result of instructions as simple as a few rules in a software program. He insists that unearthing all these rules could lead to a new scientific renaissance.

The book addresses a wide array of fundamental issues in science, from the origins of apparent randomness in physical systems to the development of complexity in biology, the possibility of an algorithmic theory of physics, the interplay between free will and determinism, and the nature of intelligence in the universe. Wolfram challenges the mathematical center of each of the major scientific disciplines in turn: biology, chemistry, physics, philosophy, evolution, fluid dynamics, cosmology, human cognition, music theory, the material sciences—the list grows. According to Wolfram, there is practically no corner of the scientific world this model can’t revolutionize.

Opinions differ. Some scientists agree Wolfram may be blazing a trail. Gregory Chaitin, a Nobel prize-winning mathematical theorist at IBM Research, hailed Wolfram’s thesis as “revolutionary.” Richard Crandall, former chief scientist at Next Software and now at the Reed College Center for Advanced Computation, called Wolfram’s book “a masterpiece.”

But others in the scientific community dismiss the book as nothing new and simply a rehash of Wolfram’s previous work. Programmable logic controller inventor Dick Morley, who has been deeply involved with Chaos Theory for many years and has organized regular “Chaos in Manufacturing” conferences for more than a decade, was not impressed. He said he feels many others have been working on cellular automata phenomena for the past several decades and yet Wolfram implies he has “invented” something.

What I myself am surprised about is the total lack of references relating to any other prior scientific work. Wolfram seems to want his “new science” to stand totally on its own, as something so ultimately simple and self-evident that it needs no prior pillars to prop it up.

I’m slogging through the phone book–sized volume excitedly and painfully—excitedly because I too am thrilled with the complex patterns generated by simple cellular automata, painfully because Wolfram goes on endlessly on the same theme. I’m still waiting to discover the “new science.”

Web site for A New Kind of Science (contents, extracts): www.wolframscience.com

Behind the byline

Jim Pinto is founder of San Diego–based Action Instruments. You can e-mail him at jim@jimpinto.com, or view his writings at www.JimPinto.com.