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Comment by qubex | Hacker News Reader

Let me drop in a plug for my favourite book, William Gary Flake’s The Computational Beauty of Nature (1997), by far the best exploration of these kinds of concepts I have ever encountered. It’s rich in discussion, beautiful diagrams, formulae & equations, and even compilable code—kind of like Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science (2003) but without the bombast and done right.

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As the author of CBofN, I thank you for the plug. But just one little correction: Gary is my first name and William is my middle.

I'm a huge fan of your book. Is there anything you'd add in a revised edition 20 years after publication?

Thanks ... I really appreciate the kind words. MIT Press has repeatedly tried to get me to do a 2nd edition and while it was tempting, I always ultimately decided that it was better to keep doing new things. Although, much to my surprise, a Japanese edition of the book just came out this year so there still seems to be some interest.

But that said, I am working on another book now that is meant to be a more accessible successor to CBofN and something of a computational "theory of everything else". I'm about halfway done, but the it's hard to write with the distraction of living in this bizarre timeline of ours.

Can you believe that’s the most exciting news I’ve heard in the past six months?

Yikes! I guess I better finish it now. Although, you should prepare to be bitterly disappointed because the next book will have something to piss off almost everyone (not by design, it's just that simultaneously seeking breadth, depth, and readability will always fall short on at least on dimension).

Oh God, I can’t believe I made that mistake... and Oh God, you’re my bloody idol.

You’re the reason I chose to study mathematics. You’re the reason I chose to delve into the rather esoteric field of symbolic computation. You’re the reason I delved into the fringe universe of disequilibrium economics!

No worries my dude. I am really happy to read that my book had such a big impact on you (as well as humbled by your praise). It's the little interactions like this that are the true reward for having written a book like CBofN, so I thank you.

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