The most important precedents deal with the whole idea of symbolic programming - the notion of setting up symbolic expressions that can represent anything one wants, and then having functions that operate on both their structure and content.

So the thing I realized rather gradually - I must say starting about 20 years ago now that we know about computers and things - there's a possibility of a more general basis for rules to describe nature.

Well, the first thing to say is that we've worked hard to maintain compatibility, so that any program written with an earlier version of Mathematica can run without change in 3.0, and any notebook can be converted.

You kind of alluded to it in your introduction. I mean, for the last 300 or so years, the exact sciences have been dominated by what is really a good idea, which is the idea that one can describe the natural world using mathematical equations.

I still tend to read more urban fantasy and romance than science-fiction, but every once in a while, a couple of books will come along and knock my socks off.

My father was a lawyer and to my best knowledge nobody in my family before had interest in science.

The planet's hope and salvation lies in the adoption of revolutionary new knowledge being revealed at the frontiers of science.

Most kids at 10 or 11 love science, but I never outgrew it.