Remembering the Improbable Life of Ed Fredkin (1934–2023)

I don't understand why Wolfram is so pleasant on his talks and videos, including interviews, and so much less so in his writings.

The subject of this essay had some salty opinions on the author, according to the author.

>> In writing this piece I asked Steven Levy what Ed had actually said in the interview he did. His first summary in reviewing his notes was “He says he considers you a friend and then goes on endlessly about what an egomaniac you are”. But then he sent me his actual notes, and they’re somewhat revealing. Ed doesn’t claim he introduced me to cellular automata, perhaps because he realizes that Levy knows from the 1980s that that isn’t true. But then Ed tells the story about showing me reversible cellular automata, which I’d explained to Ed wasn’t true. Ed goes on to say that “Everyone who’s in science wants credit, driven probably by wanting to become famous. [Wolfram] has a larger than normal dose”. Ed says that when he had said that cellular automata underlie physics, I’d said that was crazy. (Yup, that’s true.) But then Ed said “Now he denies this”. Huh? Ed went on: “He’s a prisoner of some kind of overactive ego. I believe he might not know. Wolfram deserves loads & loads of credit, but he has this personality flaw”. <<

>>Unfortunately I can confirm that Ed was not the inspiration for Stephen Falken. The character was inspired by Steven [sic] Hawking. (Falken = Falcon = Hawking)