I read about at NYT. It sounds like fractal/chaos theory to me. Is his addition that new or different? Or maybe I?m wrong about what his work?There may be some great stuff in there I can use so I'll read it.
Actually its Cellular Automata theory,but he claims to have shown that all of the laws of physics and mathematics can be generated by CAs,at least that is my understanding.In itself it is not entriely new,but he has given CA theory a new depth and scope,this is basically the fully developed theory.What is "new" about this science is that it is described by algorithms rather than equations.I haven't read it yet,so I really can't say much more about it,I'm just going on what I have heard at this point,hopefully my copy of the book will arrive here on Monday.
I went to look at it today but the books store was out and/or didn't have it. I'm going to UofC campus tomorrow so I'll check the book stores there. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
It's in my Amazon shopping cart, but sadly I am not in the position to blow $40+ on a book right now. The general theory itself sounds like it has the potential to reveal quite a lot that we don't yet understand. Who knows, maybe we'll all be lucky enough to witness a true watershed moment in scientific thinking.
I bought it today. I'm not sure if there's anything revolutionary in there. It got me to think of something differently albeit in an unrelated area.
The idea of using CAs to represent mathematical operations is interesting. I do image processing and if I can get something new or gain better understanding then it's worth it.
Oh also I remember now that the book store I was at on sunday had seven copies and one guy came in and bought them all <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> Or that's what they told me.
My copy finally came today,I've skimmed it through-nothing radically new,but basically everything known about CA and related phenomenon are included in this book,this is a book of great depth and subtlety,a great book,I highly recommend it to anyone.
Still sounds to me like he wants to take credit for stuff that was done 20 years ago. No wonder he wrote a book rather than trying to get published in peer-reviewed journals.
Actually a lot of it was discovered by him,he was one of the pioneers in the field.Even though there is nothing radically new,there is a breadth and scope,and a willingness to investigate iimplications that I have not seen elsewhere.
I wonder if my library will have it. I'm not spedning $50 to have it shipped to me.
I wonder if they'll make more - after all, he'll make more money if it's not a friggin collector's item.
I bet the text is already on Carracho somewhere. Proabably not half as good without the diagrams though. And... come on! He's a worker, desrves to get paid for his work.
Comments
[ 05-19-2002: Message edited by: Rick1138 ]</p>
The idea of using CAs to represent mathematical operations is interesting. I do image processing and if I can get something new or gain better understanding then it's worth it.
Oh also I remember now that the book store I was at on sunday had seven copies and one guy came in and bought them all <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" /> Or that's what they told me.
I wonder if my library will have it. I'm not spedning $50 to have it shipped to me.
I wonder if they'll make more - after all, he'll make more money if it's not a friggin collector's item.
I bet the text is already on Carracho somewhere.