[JackFr]

> I find Stephen Wolfram to be a an interesting person. On one hand, he is undeniably exceptional and created an impressive computational system. On the other hand, the "Wolfram language" is really a pretty poor design as far as programming languages go, and would not even be noticed if it wasn't for the giant standard library that gets shipped with it, called Mathematica. I use the "Wolfram language" because I have to, not because I want to.

He is a bona fide genius. But it's difficult to tell if his jarring references to the the 'Wolfram Language' and 'Wolfram Alpha' are simple, cynical selling, or if his vanity has blinded him into thinking the 'Wolfram Language' is a notable accomplishment on par with the other useful work he's done with physics, cellular automata and Mathematica.

In general, I am a conflicted fan. By many accounts he's an unpleasant person, and having read _A New Kind of Science_ his Principle of Computational Equivalance is real hand-wavy and not terribly rigorous.

And yet whenever he's mentioned in an HN story I always need to read it.

[peterlk]

I have worked with a small number of exceptionally talented individuals (I don't know where to draw the "genius" line, but they were up there), and I see negative aspects of their personalities echoed in Stephen Wolfram. It looks like ego to me. People lose their humility after being told that their better than everyone else for their whole lives.

Being an expert at one thing doesn't make you an expert at everything. But it's hard to realize that when you're king of your world.

A different perspective. Highly creative (smart) people are those who make mental connections that others do not see but which exist. Crazy people are those who make mental connections that others do not see and which don't exist. Perhaps he sees the Wolfram language is superior in some way that doesn't actually exist, or perhaps we're not seeing something that does.

[ff317]

That last perspective is the most important one. I've known a few genius-ish people, and I recently had a jarring experience where one of them who's a bit older and retired, but definitely not mentally ill or demented, had gone off the cliff of believing in all kinds of crazy alien/government conspiracy theories and started working on some free-energy device, etc.

At first I found it shocking that he was being so completely irrational about these things and had become a "true believer" in so much crazy so quickly. But eventually I made the connection. All the innovative stuff he did earlier in life was no different. Every great idea he came up with and pursued with dogged passion was something that everyone else around him thought was stupid and crazy at the time.

Basically he's always been "crazy" in this sense, it's just that sometimes that ability to suspend disbelief and rationality works out well and you invent something useful that nobody else would've tried, and sometimes (probably many times!) it doesn't. His brain hasn't changed how it works, it just happened to latch onto the wrong thing this time.

[mundo]

Linus Pauling was a bona fide genius; he won a Nobel for his pioneering research in to chemical bonds, made important contributions to our understanding of crystalline structures and various proteins, helped explain the the molecular genetic cause of sickle cell anemia, etc, etc. He was a giant of science and will always be remembered as such.

But he also spent the last thirty years of his career refining and attempting to popularize a model for the structure of the nucleus (the "close-packed spheron model") that never seems to have gained much acceptance. He spent even longer advocating for megavitamin therapy, which is now generally regarded as quackery, and went to his grave pushing the idea that large doses of vitamin C can help cure cancer, despite numerous studies failing to support this.

I'm not saying that Wolfram is exactly like Pauling (although his fascination with his own work on cellular automata certainly seems to share some similarities to Pauling's fascination with the spheron cluster model). But I can't help but wonder if Pauling's reputation would be different if he had had a blog.

[selimthegrim]

He also put the equivalent of a scientific hit out on Shechtman for quasicrystals

[ForHackernews]

Classic: "A Rare Blend of Monster Raving Egomania and Utter Batshit Insanity" - http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/

[rockzombie2]

This is arguably the best distinction I've heard described between "mad" and "genius".

[jwr]

I think your last paragraph might be spot-on.

[psychometry]

He's that way because he's a narcissist, not because he's a genius. Those kinds of people have difficulty stepping outside themselves and lack the ability to situate themselves in a world of different opinions. I imagine he's perpetually confused why anyone would use a different language.