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New Kind of Science

by Derrick Story
Network Newsletter for 01/21/2003

Dear Reader,

Why do we go to technology conferences?

To learn new things in our field? Yes. To gain new perspectives from peers? Of course. To get the heck out of town for a few days? Obviously!

But O'Reilly conferences provide another attraction: to meet interesting luminaries we've heard of, but have never had the chance to see in person. This is an O'Reilly conference specialty, and the upcoming Bioinformatics gathering is no exception.

For example, Stephen Wolfram is the Tuesday afternoon keynoter at BioCon. Dr. Wolfram received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Caltech at the age of 20, and went on to develop Mathematica in the late 1980s. He has documented his many achievements in his 1,200-page book, "A New Kind of Science," which was released last year.

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You can learn more about him by reading the interview we've just published, "Stephen Wolfram on Bioinformatics." And if your interest is piqued, you may want to consider a trip to San Diego, California in February to see him speak at the O'Reilly Bioinformatics Technology Conference.

(By the way: San Diego in February definitely satisfies criterion #3 on my list of why we go to conferences.)

Until next week,

Derrick

Derrick Story
O'Reilly Network Managing Editor
derrick@oreilly.com

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