Wolfram Offers Prize For (2,3) Turing Machine

An anonymous reader writes "Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica and author of A New Kind of Science, is offering a prize of $25K to anyone who can prove or disprove his conjecture that a particular 2-state, 3-color Turing machine is universal. If true, it would be the simplest universal TM, and possibly the simplest universal computational system. The announcement comes on the 5-year anniversary of the publication of NKS, where among other things Wolfram introduced the current reigning TM champion — 'rule 110,' with 2 states and 5 colors."

Comments

NKS online, step right up, get your nonsense!

[drgonzo59]

The nonsense is free online. Wow, now millions of people can read it, waste time ...and make fun it.. hopefully.

Crazy NKS "goodness" for your reading "pleasure": here .

Trust me, even if it is free, after reading it, you'll want your "free" back.

I think Editors should give credit...

[xtracto]

And the person that made the proof of what is claimed in the summary was Matthew Cook, not Wolfram himself, Wolfram sued him because he presented his proof in another conference (can you believe what a jerk?).

Of course the person that makes this proof will have to concede every right to Wolfram and therefore in some way the 25K are just a payment for such intellectual property.

And the name removing has been mostly due to his book A new kind of science, where he "comes up" with several ideas that have been created by other authors. I would like to *believe* he makes the typical Master or junior PhD error of not looking hard for the current work but other people believe he just wanted to plagiarize other's people ideas.

Re:I think Editors should give credit...

[john82]

Of course the person that makes this proof will have to concede every right to Wolfram and therefore in some way the 25K are just a payment for such intellectual property. I can't speak to your characterization of the relationship between Cook and Wolfram, however your assertion regarding the disposition of any provided proof is at best uninformed if not outright FUD. From the rules:

Submissions remain the sole property of submitter(s), but we reserve the right to publish summaries of any winning submission and the name of the submitter(s) on our website. It is also anticipated that any winning submission will be expanded into a scholarly paper that could be published in the Complex Systems journal.

It was far too easy to follow the link in the original post and investigate.

Re:NKS online, step right up, get your nonsense!

[drgonzo59]

Yes I read it. I was one of the suckers who paid money for it before it was available online.

There are some severe flaws with NKS.

You bet!

The fundamental philosophical claims are highly doubtful

Check.

...the "new science" mentioned in its title does not live to its name

Check

the egomaniacal tone

Also "Check"

the passing off of other people's hard work as Wolfram's own, the revisionist history

One more big "Check". -- This is what did it for me. I wish he made the appendix section the main part of the book. That's where he actually mentioned who did what before him and I found the examples there more interesting than Wolfram's prose + pictures. Yes, as scientist I am very sensitive and biased when it comes to passing someone's work as your own, that is very much a "no-no" in the scientific community. The only time the rest of the world hears about the scientists is when they discover something really amazing or plagiarize.

Overall, was the reading insteresting?, -- it was alright for me. I learned some new things as well (but mostly things others did that W. re-did in Mathematica) about CA, tag systems, fractals and such. But it was anything but a "New Kind Of Science". It wasn't "New" (just re-packaged) and it wasn't a "Science" it was just prose. Apart from few examples, W.'s "proofs" consist of phrases like "I strongly believe X", "I am quite confident that Y" and "Look at the pretty picture I generated!".

Trust me I tried to like it: I paid money for the book and spent time reading it, I didn't want o believe that I somehow 'wasted' it, but in the end I have to be honest to myself and say 'no' it isn't what it claims to be and 'yes' I wish I hadn't spent the time and money buying it.

Re:Arrow of time is reversed in CA

[egomaniac]

In reality the future is completely fixed? I'm guessing you're not a physicist. Quantum mechanics is an inherently probabilistic theory -- you can calculate the probability of given events happening, but that's it. You can smash the same two particles together five times in a row and get five different results.

The future is absolutely not fixed, because randomness is deeply engrained into our universe.