Stephen Wolfram Q&A
Submit a questionSome collected questions and answers by Stephen Wolfram
Questions may be edited for brevity; see links for full questions.
Education
(19)March 1, 1993
From: Interview by Paul Wellin, Mathematica in Education
The early computer algebra systems—Macsyma, SMP, etc.—were they used purely as research tools or was there some notion that they might be used in the classroom also?
At that time it was not really practical to think of using these things in the classroom. SMP was built to run on the then-emerging class of mini-computer systems such as VAXes, and VAXes were in the multi-hundred-thousand-dollar price range, so it wasn’t realistic to think of those things being used in a serious way in the classroom.
March 1, 1993
From: Interview by Paul Wellin, Mathematica in Education
What do you think of the state of math and science education in the US right now?
I remember a couple of early experiences interacting with the “computers and education” crowd at conferences. The experiences varied—from me being very pleasantly surprised at how quickly people seemed to be catching on to the potential for this kind of thing, to complete horror at the fact that people like the ones I was seeing were actually teaching young Americans about science or mathematics. Read more
March 1, 1993
From: Interview by Paul Wellin, Mathematica in Education
Why have computer science and mathematics departments diverged so strongly in the recent past?
One of the biggest mistakes of research mathematics in America in the last 50 years has been to let computer science get away. If you look at what was done when computing was young, there was a strong and definite strand of computing that was essentially part of mathematics. The mathematicians rejected it: this was a big mistake. Read more
March 1, 1993
From: Interview by Paul Wellin, Mathematica in Education
From an educational point of view, would you put the Mathematica language on a par with Fortran or Pascal?
People might attack me for immodesty, but I think in the present day and age, if you’re teaching general people about programming computers, Mathematica is far and away the best programming language to use—and I’ll tell you why. There are a certain set of people, who when they are grown up, Read more
March 3, 1993
From: Interview by Paul Wellin, Mathematica in Education
You went to Oxford for college, but never finished there—so what led from there to Caltech?
I was pretty much on the track of doing particle physics research, and being a physics undergraduate at Oxford wasn’t a particularly useful environment in which to do particle physics research. Since I had the opportunity fairly easily to go to graduate school in the US, I decided to do that and I chose to go to Caltech. Read more
June 1, 1996
From: Interview by Chicago Software Newspaper
You’ve spent a lot of time in business and working in pure science areas. Do you prefer one environment to the other or have any observations on the two worlds?
There is science, and then there is academia. When I was a professor I used to say that business was my hobby and being a professor was what I made money at. Now I say that if one wants to do basic research and you have no other choice—go be a professor. Read more
June 1, 1996
From: Interview by Stephen Collart, Euromath Bulletin
The use of symbolic computational tools in teaching is a controversial topic where transatlantic differences are particularly evident; what is your view on the matter?
I guess the use of calculators is controversial too. I think anything that’s new will be controversial, and will remain so until the people who didn’t grow up with it die off. I think it’s fairly obvious that having a tool available is better than not having it available. And certainly it looks to me as if some rather nice things have been done with Mathematica—and particularly with Mathematica notebooks—in the courseware area.
March 5, 2012
From: Reddit AMA
Was there anything you wish your parents had done differently to make your early education smoother as a child? What about social skills?
I think Wikipedia may overstate the difficulty of my education 🙂
I went to some very good schools in England, and typically did rather well. However, starting from probably age 8 or so, I ended up learning the things I was really interested in outside of school, from books, etc. (I wish the web had existed; Read more
May 14, 2012
From: Reddit AMA
Many students struggle with basic calculus. What is your advice to students who rely on programs like your Wolfram|Alpha engine to get themselves through math courses? Do you think it’s ethical for students to rely on such programs to pass their courses?
I’ve been using computers to do math for more than 30 years now. For me, the important thing is that by using computers I was always able to do many more examples… from which I could get an intuition about how the math should work out. And once one can guess from intuition how a problem should work out, Read more
May 14, 2012
From: Reddit AMA
What do you recommend for current students who are interested in STEM careers, and want to make a difference?
I’m a huge believer in people doing projects they care about. Learn the basics. Learn the best tools. Then try doing projects. I’m not sure if I’m suitably unbiased in this, but I have to say that I think learning Mathematica is a really good start. It depends on your detailed interests, Read more
May 14, 2012
From: Reddit AMA
How do you see integration of computational thinking into general math education working? Is it something that every student should be exposed to? How deep does the integration go?
My brother Conrad has an initiative related to this, called Computer-Based Math: https://www.computerbasedmath.org/
I think there are also things to do directly with computation and NKS, without any direct connection to traditional “math”. And yes, I think these are great for all students. Both because it’s a foundation for a lot of things in the world. Read more
May 14, 2012
From: Reddit AMA
Do you think intelligence has “normalized”? Basically, with more people alive than ever before and college education available to a large percentage of the world’s population, do you think we are seeing fewer break-out intellects because the playing field is more level? For instance, no more Maxwells, Newtons, Einsteins, etc. Or is it just that we are unable to see the current visionaries while still living in the same generation as their bodies of work?
It definitely is easier to see “break-out intellects” in retrospect than at the time. It’s also worth realizing that the domains of greatest creativity have shifted over the years. Sometimes they’ve involved science, sometimes not.
Also, it’s usually harder to have something “break-out” happen when there’s an area that’s more institutionalized. Read more
February 23, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
What ages are appropriate to learn Wolfram Language? Do you see Wolfram Language in third world countries like an Open Source platform in the future?
My theory has been that age 12 is where Wolfram Language starts to be the right thing to learn. But I’ve now seen a good number of 9-, 10- and 11-year-olds who seem to be having a great time with it, so at least for some kids I have to revise my estimate down. Read more
February 23, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
What is the one thing any student must try in college?
Hmmmm… I myself was only in college for about a year (in Oxford, long long ago) … and I spent most of my time in an underground computer room where I had access to the ARPANET, doing physics research. So I don’t have much to say from personal experience.
In today’s world, Read more
July 20, 2016
From: Reddit AMA
How do you propose we expand STEM education in our public schools? Do you think your software can help?
Lots to say about this. For a start, see https://www.wolfram.com/programming-lab
October 7, 2016
From: Dingyu Chen, Eton Magazine
Should students be set exams that allow them to use such [advanced] computers?
If what one’s trying to test in exams is whether people will be successful at solving problems in real life, then of course the people should be able to use the tools they’d use in real life.
March 4, 2019
From: Reddit AMA
Why is math so awesome and how can we make it more accessible and easier to teach?
Not really my subject here… But… What’s even more awesome than math IMHO is the whole computational universe… which I think of as a generalization of math. Still, math is basically the single largest intellectual artifact our civilization has built so far. I like teaching it by doing abstract experiments with computers, Read more
December 6, 2019
From: Interview by Jeff D’Alessio, The News-Gazette (unpublished)
What’s the most beneficial college class you’ve taken?
My college experience (at Oxford University) was rather nonstandard. I went to college fairly young (age 16), but was already doing physics research, etc. The way the Oxford system worked at the time, one was only studying one subject (physics, in my case) and one didn’t actually have to go to lectures. Read more
December 18, 2019
From: Interview by Guy Kawasaki, Remarkable People Podcast
Do you think that we should teach physics before math? Is that possible?
I don’t think physics is the thing. I think computation is the thing that is the paradigm of today’s world, just as a few hundred years ago it was a big deal when people realized you could use math to figure out stuff about the world. That’s what led to modern physics, Read more