http://blog.wolfram.com News, views, & ideas from the front lines at Wolfram Research Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:59:20 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en As a fan of cars, I find that even when I am perfectly happy with my vehicle, I check car lots and classifieds and car-dealer ads. This began in college when I had to drive a car that, let me just say, was not a high-performance vehicle. It got me ... http://blog.wolfram.com/2009/07/02/graduating-from-student-to-professional/ Stephen Wolfram recently received an award for his contributions to computer science. The following is a slightly edited transcript of the speech he gave on that occasion. (The audio version of the original speech is here.) I want to talk about a big topic here today: the quest for computable knowledge. ... http://blog.wolfram.com/2009/06/29/stephen-wolfram-on-the-quest-for-computable-knowledge/ While tidying up after my kids once again, I found myself staring at the toy shown below and thinking of a conversation that I had had with an archaeologist Mathematica user a few days before. He had been interested in image processing of aerial photographs, but it occurred to me ... http://blog.wolfram.com/2009/06/23/musical-archaeology-with-mathematica/ During the last weekend of May, I was one of the representatives for Wolfram Research at Maker Faire at the San Mateo County Expo Center in San Mateo, California. Maker Faire is the largest do-it-yourself (DIY) festival, organized annually by Make Magazine. Participants come from a wide variety of groups ... http://blog.wolfram.com/2009/06/17/making-the-most-of-mathematica-at-maker-faire/ The Mathematica mailing list and internet newsgroup comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica (called MathGroup for short) have been in existence for more than twenty years now. In January 2005, we passed the 50,000-message mark. Now, in only a little more than four years, we have added another 50,000. I want to take this opportunity to ... http://blog.wolfram.com/2009/06/11/100000-posts-to-mathgroup/ I just visited Washington, DC, and I find myself returning with a renewed sense of enthusiasm. Did this have something to do with the progression from mild rain to what could be the first sunny, summer days of the year? Or seeing the nation's capitol in person? Partially, yes. But the ... http://blog.wolfram.com/2009/06/04/mathematica-and-enthusiastic-k8-teachers/ Have you ever wanted a set of straightforward, step-by-step instructions for solving a problem or accomplishing a specific task with Mathematica? Have you ever thought that a Mathematica "quick-reference guide" would be useful? If so, take a look at the "How To" Topics in Version 7. "How tos" are a ... http://blog.wolfram.com/2009/05/28/how-do-you-do-that-in-mathematica/ May 14, 2009 marks the 7th anniversary of the publication of A New Kind of Science, and it has been my tradition on these anniversaries to write a short report on the progress of NKS. It has been fascinating over the past few years to watch the progressive absorption of NKS ... http://blog.wolfram.com/2009/05/14/7-years-of-nksand-its-first-killer-app/ With all the new aspects of Mathematica in Versions 6 and 7, I've enjoyed visiting universities to talk about how to use Mathematica in even more courses and research projects. Universities enjoy this, too! I am not, however, very good at thinking about the locations of universities or schools in terms ... http://blog.wolfram.com/2009/05/08/planning-a-trip-ask-mathematica-for-the-itinerary/ During my stay in Champaign, Illinois at Wolfram Research headquarters last summer, I attended the 2008 Advanced Mathematica Summer School. The Summer School gives people from all over the world a chance to present their challenging problems in varied math and science fields and work with others to find solutions ... http://blog.wolfram.com/2009/05/05/the-spoons-and-the-summer-school/