What can be said? I was in awe of this book before I even opened the cover; it is huge, and self-published. Ah, but what glorious, middle-finger-in-your-face insouciance to the scientific mainstream! ( )

A hard read, for all but the most dedicated. A controversial subject, the use of computer modeling to explore scientific concepts, as a replacement for the (conventional) scientific method.

Wolfram has turned into such a crank that I can't even bear to finish reading his book. Given the conspicuous absence of proper citations, the admittedly pretty pictures are the only reason to buy the book at all. ( )

I read the first 300 pages of this book and then went on to other things. It’s not that the writing was bad or uninteresting; I just got tired of the level of study that the book demanded. From the pages I did read I can say that the author is extremely thorough in his exploration, especially with respect to cellular automata where he enumerates every variety and explores every permutation in their behavior. He does an excellent job organizing and explaining the material, and the book is beautifully designed and printed. The resolution of the diagrams is the finest I've seen and it's fun just looking through them all. If you are into mathematics, computer science, or automata I would recommend getting this book. If for nothing else than browsing through the 350 pages of notes at the end. If you’re a general science reader you'll probably be disappointed. ( )

What is new in this book is not science. What is science in this book is not new. ( )