----- Original Message ----- From: Paul R. Pudaite To: math-fun@mailman.xmission.com Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 12:26 PM Subject: Re: [math-fun] Steven Krantz's review of A New Kind of Science At 12:58 AM -0800 11/20/02, Thane Plambeck wrote: <http://www.math.wustl.edu/~sk/wolfram.pdf>http://www.math.wustl.edu/~sk/wolfram.pdf One could probably write an entire Ph.D. dissertation in the sociology of science on why Krantz would write: For instance, Rule 30 says (page 27) "take the new color of the cell to be whatever the previous color of its left-hand neighbor was." It is astonishing to me that the entire function of the universe -- from the creation of the Mona Lisa to my current state of dyspepsia -- emanates from a rule such as this. Paul No, your state of dyspepsia emanates from the CORRECT statement of rule 30, which is sufficiently complex to explain everyting from quarks to sociology, not to mention shit and Shinola.