Wolfram Science

Live Experiment 2

Here is the pdf, converted after some light editing, of the live experiment I just led at the minicourse.

Download Live-Experiment-06.pdf

Our goal was to find something new in 15 minutes (or less) within the space of ECA's whose rule numbers were even and greater than 128. We found some interesting structures produced by rule 182 on a repeating background, with the help of audience members especially Jason Cawley and Kovas Boguta.

Applying NKS minicourse talk

Posted by Todd Rowland.

Here is the pdf of the talk at the minicourse I gave about applying NKS. Download NKS-Applied-06.pdf

First Steps with Wolfram Research

"Hi, I'm Joe Bolte. I work for Wolfram now." With these words, I started my career with Wolfram Research and the 2006 NKS Conference. The two women unpacking the makeshift headquarters in the small conference room where I had been told to come guided me upstairs to a corporate boadroom where Stephen Wolfram was meeting with members of the Science Group and some of the other researchers. It was a little disconcerting starting off a new job by being pushed into the middle of a meeting headed by the founder of your company, but I tried to play it cool while I shook hands with everyone and memorized names. Most of the people in the room were playing up the obsessive genius look, typing on laptops with furrowed brows and wild hair. It really was a strange scene, lil' ole me among these guys sitting in leather backed chairs and discussing their goals for the conference and the company's future. I figured there wasn't much to do except sit down, listen carefully and try to contribute. There's no way to "nail" situations like these, since the main topic of the evening was a problem on which some of the guys had been spending quite some time and thought, but at least no one seemed to think my questions or suggestions were an undue annoyance. And it was exciting; it had been quite a long time since I'd gotten to work on problems that were fundamentally hard to solve, with difficulties far beyond implementation details. Eventually our focus started to wander and the meeting broke up at 2 a.m. after about five hours of discussion.

In addition to commenting on presentations and NKS topics, I thought it would be interesting to post about my experiences like these, starting work at a company full of talented, dedicated people and fascinating ideas like Wolfram Research. I am not sure what forms these posts will take, but I'd love to hear feedback about this idea, especially if you have suggestions or questions about how things work behind the scenes at WRI. Drop me a line and I'll answer anything appropriate, but keep in mind I've already signed the NDA ;) You can reach me at joeb at wolfram.com

Good Morning and welcome to NKS2006!

Posted by Kathryn Cramer.

Good morning. I'm blogging live from my well-appointed hotel room at the Fairmont in Washington, DC. NKS2006 starts this morning with the all-day NKS mini-course by the Wolfram Science staff, plus a reception this evening, where art inspired by NKS will be on display.

I got here yesterday and have been taking the hotel services for a test drive in advance. The Fairmont found me a very nice babysitter named Hazel whom I will be using for the duration of the conference. Also, they told me how to get a nearby rental car which I used to take the kids on an excursion to Chesapeake Bay yesterday. I have also pretested the hotel bar and the Juniper restaurant: pleasantly quiet, good food and drink priced as you would expect for a hotel like this.

My sister and her husband came over yesterday evening with their kids: I'm told the hotel pool is very nice, though lacking much of a shallow end for small children and that their pizza ordered from room service arrived about when room service said it would (within about 35 minutes).

A bit after 9, I encountered Stephen Wolfram in the elevator who said he expected we would all have a lot of fun this weekend.