Hacker News Reader

Comment by skosch | Hacker News Reader

> Hashing has always been one of my favorite practical computation ideas (and I even independently came up with it when I was about 13 years old, in 1973).

The man just can't help himself.

View on HN

Well, he WAS a child prodigy who published his first major paper at 18 and got his PhD when he was 20, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he actually did independently come up with the idea of hashing at age 13.

In general I think people should just stop being triggered by Wolfram's comments.

Yes, he does go out of his way to emphasize what he feels are his personal contributions.

Yes, in some cases some of his claims do appear to be a bit exaggerated (e.g. some of his cellular automata stuff)

But at the end of the day, he is still a pretty smart guy who actually writes about math/science topics fairly well, and I think that is far more important than raging every single time he gives himself credit for something or emphasizes his own work on a topic.

Most people who are smart learn that emphasizing that you are smarter than others leads people to hate you and it generally makes one's life more difficult. How did Wolfram not realize this?

Actually, I am sure he did, he's too smart to not have realized this, but I think he has one of those incredibly fragile egos where he needs to validate himself all the time to random people, even if doing has negative impacts on him.

Zuckerberg doesn't do this, Musk doesn't do, Gates doesn't do this, the Google guys do not do this. I could go on and on. So many smart successful people do not have to do this all the time, but Wolfram does. It is so self-inflicted.

Zuckerberg, Gates, Musk and the Google guys aren't as smart as Wolfram, period.

> Most people who are smart learn that emphasizing that you are smarter than others leads people to hate you and it generally makes one's life more difficult. How did Wolfram not realize this?

That also speaks tons about people who take offence at (hate) others for giving themselves generous credit.

> That also speaks tons about people who take offence at (hate) others for giving themselves generous credit.

Maybe, but if someone was really beautiful and they had to keep pointing this out to you, would you like to hang around them? Or would you think they are vain and self-centered and basically avoid them because they fit the definition of "obnoxious."

I usually roll my eyes or have a chuckle (if they are particularly funny) and move on :)

As with any child prodigy, they are guaranteed to fall short of expectations. Either those of others or their own.

Independently coming up with the idea and independently implementing it are two different things. In college I independently came up with the idea of representing shapes as equations for decreased size and infinite fidelity, before I learned that vector graphics existed and were exactly that. But I had no idea where to start on implementing it.

Most programmers aren't aware of this - but we actually don't really know if one-way functions can actually exist. So all hash algorithms might be built on a false and faulty premise. In fact, whether a good hash algorithm can actually exist, is related to P = NP:

http://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs6830/2009fa/scribes/lect...

The SI unit for Ego is the Wolfram

I skimmed over the article, read 10 random paragraphs in full. Looks like the kind of article I'm not likely to learn much from or otherwise find very entertaining.

It's about 6500 words. And these are the 17 you take issue with: and I even independently came up with it when I was about 13 years old, in 1973.

I'm fairly convinced if I pay enough attention to anyone I'll find something to criticise them about, but that generally doesn't say anything about the quality or impact of their work in the world.

Do you have anything substantive to say about the article itself?

And neither can we, it seems, help being trolled by it.

I think it's mostly an internet joke nowadays, his calling card. I've watched some of his long talks and he comes off pretty likeable in them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com