Stephen Wolfram Biography

World of Mathematics on Stephen Wolfram

Stephen Wolfram shook up the scientific world from an early age, and has been recognized as a leading innovator in scientific computing since the first version of his computer program Mathematica was released in 1988.

Stephen Wolfram was born in London on August 29, 1959. His mother was a professor of philosophy at Oxford, and his father was a businessman and part-time novelist. Stephen attended the Dragon School at Oxford from 1967 to 1972, then entered Eton on a scholarship. He published his first scientific paper at the age of 15, which concerned particle physics. At 17, he entered Oxford, advancing rapidly through his studies. In 1978, he came to the United States to attend the California Institute of Technology; he received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics a year later, at age 20.

He received a "genius" grant from the MacArthur Foundation in 1981, becoming the youngest person ever to receive such an honor. The award was given in recognition of his work in physics and in the field of scientific computing, in which he was an early leader.

Besides his abiding interest in particle physics, he was also interested in cosmology, particularly the formation of the universe. During his research he developed a computer program that could handle symbols in algebraic statements as well as numbers, and named it the Symbolic Manipulation Program, or SMP.

He licensed the rights to produce SMP commercially to a California software company, and Caltech took him to court, claiming that because he had created SMP while working for the university, the university, not Wolfram, owned the program. Not long after the case was settled out of court, Wolfram left Caltech for Princeton, to join the Institute for Advanced Study. He was only 23.

Wolfram's interests now turned to discovering how complexity arises in nature. To do this, he practiced experimental mathematics: writing computer programs and running them to see what they would do, and then developing theories based on observations. The simple programs are known as cellular automata, and they can produce remarkably complex patterns--patterns that seem to have intelligence behind them. Wolfram's work with cellular automata became the foundation for a new field of science called complex systems research. Wolfram discovered ways to apply cellular automata for fluid dynamics and cryptography.

However, creating the programs was a laborious and time-consuming process, given the limits of the program being used (C) and the power of the computers the programs ran on. However, with new and more powerful computers being developed, Wolfram set out to create a program that would do that.

The result was Mathematica, a powerful computer program. It can produce three-dimensional graphics of each step in a calculation, no matter how complex, as the calculations are being done. Today, Mathematica has more than one million users around the world.

After leaving the Institute, he joined the faculty of the University at Illinois in 1986 as professor of physics, mathematics and computer science. In 1987 he founded his own company, Wolfram Research, Inc., based in Champaign, Ill. In 1988, he ended his active position at the University of Illinois to pursue other interests.

Today, Wolfram continues his scientific research even while serving as CEO of Wolfram Research. His long-term goals include finding the fundamental theory of physics, creating machines that think, and changing how science is organized.

More information is available on his web site, www.stephenwolfram.com, and from Wolfram Research's web site, www.wolframresearch.com.