NKS: the first anniversary
Today (May 14, 2003) is the first anniversary of the release of A
NEW KIND OF SCIENCE.
It's been an exciting first year for NKS.
A remarkable number of people from all sorts of areas have read the
book--and more and more of them are enthusiastically studying it in
great
detail. Lots of people are beginning their own serious explorations
of NKS
ideas, with NKS Explorer or the
programs from the book. And
we're gradually starting
to see a stream of research papers that build on NKS.
I've given nearly fifty heavily-attended lectures
about NKS. Other people have started
lecturing and teaching about NKS too. And there's been a lot of media
coverage, a fair bit of it sensible.
Introducing a major new intellectual direction is never easy. And
we've
certainly seen some of the usual "it's wrong", "it's been done
before",
"it's not science" responses over the past year. But I would have
been
amazed if there'd been any serious challenges to the core ideas of
NKS, and
indeed there haven't. (There have actually been remarkably few bugs
at all
found in the book.)
I've always said that the story of NKS will be played out over a
great many
years. But it's been encouraging to see how quickly people who
actually
read the book seem to be able to absorb its ideas. And it's been
wonderful
to witness some of the "aha!" moments that happen when people
suddenly
understand points in NKS.
So what's next for NKS? It's a wide open field--with a lot of
exciting
science to be done, and applications to be developed. And this
year--as
well as working very hard on the next version of Mathematica and the
next
generation of tools for NKS--I've been thinking a lot about how to
help
make those things happen in the best possible way.
The first step is clearly education. The ideas and methods of the
book need
to be disseminated as thoroughly as possible. More books and
expositions
need to be written. More courses need to be taught. And for our
part,
we've been steadily moving forward on a variety of educational initiatives.
The first NKS Summer
School--which was heavily oversubscribed--will take place in July.
And coming in a little over a month will be a major event in the
development
of NKS:
the NKS 2003 Conference & Minicourse, to be
held in Boston on June 27-29.
We'll
be launching some important new initiatives at NKS 2003--both in the
core
science of NKS and its applications. And it'll be a truly
stimulating and
unique gathering of NKS pioneers.
As NKS ends its first year, I am more certain than ever of the
exciting
future that lies ahead. I hope that you can be involved--and that
we'll
see you next month at NKS 2003.
|