THE BLOG
of John GellesMay 15, 2007
Complex Engineering, Economic & Political Programs.
Computational Approaches (Convergence models, NKS).
Employment, Taxation, Production & Money Systems.Four days ago in my blog I repeated a thought by Professor of Physics Marty Hoffert of NYU on programs required to address very complex issues of supply that constrain rational and radical reform of democratic political economies—to wit:
Well, I think one thing that we have to still resolve—and one of the reasons that I and colleagues advocate Powell-like**, Manhattan Project-like research and development programs, is that we still have unresolved issues, let's say, with renewable energy, i.e., whether we want to
develop the energy in remote places, for example, the Great Plains, and route the energy by high-voltage electric power lines across the country and even around the world, or
develop decentralized electrical power from solar energy.
**possibly referring to M.J.D. Powell, Theoretical Physics Division, U.K.A.E.A. Research Group, Atomic Energy Research Establishment Harwell, whose computer algorithms offer rapid optimization for nonlinear complex engineering or physics research questions]
Professor Hoffert, I believe, suggests conventional optimization algorithms that seek convergence on solution values when we try to answer question like the example given above. Stephen Wolfram may have Powell-like programs in mind if asked a similar question (about nonlinear complex engineering)—I don't know. But in his books "A New Kind of Science (NKS)" and "Mathematica" (his engineers programming masterpiece as well as a book), he offers cellular automata and Turning machine approaches to computation of such solution values.
In my view, the approaches (Newtonian convergence computer programs versus NKS Turing machines) are not nearly as problematic as the courage it may take for engineers to challenge all of political economy in the matter of employment, taxation, production and monetary savings systems.
It is not just the supply of energy to society that we must engineer; it is the supply of "years of decent living that you and I may want" to "all others who may want nothing less", that problem solvers must aim for. In short, in my view, the golden rule applies ahead of all other rules in matters of political economy.
At this point in history, until a computed barter price replaces money, I believe we must improve the money system in place. I see—taxation as wholly unnecessary, (the cost of government will be spent into circulation and later taxed only if, after privately saved money replaces consumer debt with very large bank accounts, money begins to lose its magic as the primary reward for work); inflation protected cash savings as critical; focus on raising the minimum standard of living as necessary; inequality in expertise as obvious; and balance between "mass production for mass consumption" and "limited production for luxury consumption" as OK—and amenable to political and legal compromise as we move from where we are today to a more reasonable world tomorrow.
We note that very high priced unique items can painlessly absorb money spent into circulation by a government that avoids taxes to motivate work and voting in the public interest.
Some rationing and allocation of scarce resources may be necessary; but with taxes out of the way, anxiety over money can be eliminated and resistance to reform by a very rich minority and be completely turned around.
Copyrighted work reprinted here is for educational non profit purposes --- and at the teachable moment. It was offered free to me on the internet (as a member of a wide audience) and is copied here free to others adding to its value) --- it is fair use of the work.
Email May 14 2007
From Stephen Wolfram sw-office@wolfram.com
To NKS List
[Topic A radically new version of Mathematica (http://www.wolfram.com) ;
The Wolfram Demonstrations Project (http://demonstrations.wolfram.com) ;
NKS Turing machines (http://www.wolframprize.org) ]
Today it is five years since A New Kind of Science
(http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline) was published.
Five years is a short time in intellectual history. But already
it is clear that the ideas of the book have firmly taken root,
and their effects are steadily growing.
There are all the usual signs of activity, in both traditional
academic media and elsewhere. Indeed, by now the sheer quantity
of material being generated has become quite overwhelming. It
spans all the traditional sciences, and reaches into technology,
the creative arts, business, philosophy and more. (See pointers
at http://www.wolframscience.com.)
I am continually amazed at how widespread serious study of the
book has been. Particularly striking to me has been how often I
have encountered leaders in some field or another, who can tell
me from memory specific page numbers of the NKS book on which
there is something relevant to their field.
I spent nearly eleven years writing the book. And during that
time I discovered thousands of results that I packed into the
book and its notes. And it is nice now to see that in addition to
people absorbing its overall points, there is beginning to be an
increasing amount of "mining" of details from the book.
It has been very tempting to devote myself to extensions and
applications of ideas in the book. But instead over the past few
years I have for the most part chosen to focus on building
general tools.
Twenty years ago one of my original motivations for creating
Mathematica was to have a tool that would make it possible for me
to do A New Kind of Science.
And about ten years ago, as I was working on A New Kind of
Science, I gradually began to realize that the foundations we had
built with Mathematica would allow us to take some new bold
steps.
Partly this was the result of absorbing the real implications of
the abstract concept of symbolic programming that lies at the
heart of Mathematica. And partly it was the result of
understanding--through NKS--more about the true potential of the
whole computational paradigm.
For ten years we worked to bring this vision to fruition. And it
is very exciting to be able to say that just two weeks ago, after
a huge project, with countless new ideas and a monumental effort
of software engineering, we finished. And the result is a
radically new version of Mathematica (http://www.wolfram.com).
I think what we have done takes computing to a whole new
level--and will in the end prove more significant even than the
original release of Mathematica 1.0 nearly twenty years ago, with
all its subsequent success.
Certainly it will tremendously expand the range of potential
users and uses of Mathematica in general. But for NKS it will
also make possible qualitatively new kinds of discoveries.
When I started--26 years ago--the investigations which led to
NKS, the key programs that I used took me days or weeks to write.
But now, with our new Mathematica, I can write better versions of
those same programs in minutes--and work with them in a
completely new dynamic way.
One of the things made possible by our new Mathematica is a new
interactive communication medium, showcased by The Wolfram
Demonstrations Project (http://demonstrations.wolfram.com), which
we launched along with Mathematica two weeks ago.
The Demonstrations Project is a free resource with a broad and
growing range of interactive Demonstrations. And among those
already available are nearly 200 based directly on the NKS book.
The new Mathematica immediately provides both a new level of
tools for NKS, and new methods of communication.
But the progress of NKS requires developing not only technology,
but also a strong NKS community. And as part of our support for
the growing NKS community, we have decided to commemorate this
fifth anniversary of NKS by establishing the first NKS research
prize.
We have decided for the prize to select a specific problem that
relates to the core mission of pure NKS: to explore, map and
understand the computational universe.
The details are at http://www.wolframprize.org
The prize of $25,000 will be awarded to the first person or group
to determine whether or not a particular Turing machine from the
NKS book is universal.
Before NKS, one might have thought that to do general-purpose
computation would require a system elaborately built with
complicated rules. But the discoveries of NKS--and the Principle
of Computational Equivalence--suggest that instead such universal
computation should be common, even among systems with simple
rules.
The purpose of the prize is to establish just how simple these
rules can be in the case of Turing machines--the classic original
abstract model of computation.
Of course we do not know who will win the prize. But it has been
exciting over the past few years to see so many talented people,
both professional and amateur, and at all stages of life, enter
the general field of NKS research.
This June we will be holding our fifth annual NKS Summer School
(http://www.wolframscience.com/summerschool), with probably our
strongest group of students yet.
And in July we will be holding the NKS 2007 Wolfram Science
Conference (http://www.wolframscience.com/conference/2007).
When I discovered the first elements of NKS, I knew it was the
beginning of something large. But as the years have gone by--and
now as I have been able to watch what others have done with
NKS--I have gradually realized that NKS is even more important
and fundamental than I had ever imagined.
These are still the early years for NKS, and there is much to
come, both in basic science and applications. But the NKS
community is growing, and the pace of progress is quickening--and
especially with our new tools, I expect the next few years to be
particularly exciting.
Thank you for your interest in NKS during its early years.
-- Stephen Wolfram