Computer scientist and popular author to visit

Stephen Wolfram, regarded as one of the world’s most original scientists and a leader in the field of scientific computing, will deliver a free, public talk Monday, Oct. 7, for his latest book, “A New Kind of Science.” Sponsored by the university, the event will take place at 7:30 p.m. at the Wisconsin Union Theater.

The book, written for a general audience, makes public a series of Wolfram’s own scientific discoveries that shed light on fundamental problems in physics, biology, computer science and mathematics. It tackles key questions about the origin of randomness in physical systems to more philosophical ones about the interplay between free will and determinism.

Wolfram, who published his first scientific paper at the age of 15 and who received his doctorate degree in theoretical physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1979 at the age of 20, has spent much of his career studying the origins of complexity in nature. In the early 1980s, he made a series of discoveries about the behavior of simple computer programs called cellular automata. He may be best known for his development of “Mathematica,” a single computing system widely used today in technical fields. Wolfram is president and CEO of Wolfram Research.