The start of this year has been absolutely crazy. I think perhaps I overcommitted and am in over my head. Regardless, cool things keep happening so I will try to keep it the work rate.
Last Tuesday, Stephen Wolfram visited the school to give a talk about what he does and what computational thinking can do for us. He is convinced that computational approaches to old problems are the future of science. In addition, he described ways that any number of normally boring processes can be automated, replaced, or obsoleted.
That’s the reason that he built his Wolfram Language. He was originally mostly a particle physicist, hanging around the same crowd as Einstein, but a bit younger; he was good friends with Richard Feynman.
Earlier that morning I had gotten to direct Wolfram to his presentation room and explain a little bit about the school. Because of this, some of the faculty from the computer science and math departments invited me to come along with them and Wolfram to dinner! They had made reservations at The Squealing Pig for that evening. By the time students attending Stephen Wolfram’s presentation were done asking questions, time had slipped away and the hour was slightly past 7:30.
Time had slipped so much, in fact, that we missed our reservations at The Squealing Pig and Wolfram opted to go to Au Bon Pain in the interest of getting food quickly. Talking is hungry business and everyone wanted to go home.
We did go to Au Bon Pain and talked for a long time there and two of the three students that came to dinner got autographed books.