Wolfram Computation Meets Knowledge

The Mathematica Story: A Scrapbook

Three Decades of Contributions to Invention, Discovery and Education

Mark Wise, Caltech

I was a graduate student in high energy theoretical physics at Stanford University when I first met Stephen Wolfram in either 1978 or 1979 (I don’t recall which). This was before Mathematica and he invited me to give a talk at Caltech and was my host for my visit. I have to say he made me feel welcome and did an excellent job. I was a little nervous since it was my first talk.

Of course in my field Mathematica has completely changed the way we work in high energy theory. It is an essential tool and I congratulate Stephen and the Mathematica team for the remarkable work you have done and the incredible product you produced.

A question that sometimes comes up in physics is “who got X’s office” where X is a famous person in the field. So I can answer the question, who got Stephen Wolfram’s office at Caltech. It was me! And I am very proud of that fact.

So congratulations to the whole Mathematica team on this 25th anniversary and keep up the good work