Stephen Wolfram, Scientist, Entrepreneur, and Creator of Mathematica

Stephen Wolfram is founder and president of Wolfram Research, Inc., the company that developed the Mathematica computer system. Wolfram is the principal architect of the system and has been responsible for many parts of its implementation. He was educated at Eton, Oxford, and Caltech. After two years on the faculty at Caltech and four years at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, he moved to the University of Illinois, where until 1990 he was director of the Center for Complex Systems Research, and professor of physics, mathematics and computer science. His scientific contributions have spanned a number of areas: high-energy physics, quantum field theory, cosmology, cellular automata, chaos and complexity theory, computational fluid dynamics, computational encryption and the development of SMP, and a computer algebra system that was a forerunner of some elements of Mathematica. He is founding editor of Complex Systems,the primary journal in the field; his books include Cellular Automata and Complexity: Collected Papers, Mathematica: The Student Book, Mathematica Reference Guide, The Mathematica Book (3rd ed.), and (forthcoming) New Kind of Science. In 1981, Wolfram received a MacArthur Fellowship for his work in physics and computer science.