# What is Wolfram Language (mathematica)'s influence on Julia?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-wolfram-language-mathematica-s-influence-on-julia/6403>\
**Category:** Community\
**Tags:** mathematica\
**Created:** [October 12, 2017, 2:49am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-wolfram-language-mathematica-s-influence-on-julia/6403 "2017-10-12T02:49:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![mbauman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbauman/32/31082_2.png) [@mbauman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbauman)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2020, 7:59pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-wolfram-language-mathematica-s-influence-on-julia/6403/21 "2020-10-16T19:59:55Z")

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5 posts were split to a new topic: [On flagging newcomers as off-topic](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/on-flagging-newcomers-as-off-topic/48517)

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**Author:** ![John\_Gibson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/john_gibson/32/5321_2.png) [@John\_Gibson](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/John_Gibson)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2020, 5:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-wolfram-language-mathematica-s-influence-on-julia/6403/22 "2020-10-20T17:50:49Z")

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One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Ed Spiegel, a pioneer in turbulence and chaos:

> If I have seen less far than others, it is because I was standing behind giants.

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**Author:** ![Ahmed\_Salih](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ahmed_salih/32/206579_2.png) [@Ahmed\_Salih](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Ahmed_Salih)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2020, 8:35pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-wolfram-language-mathematica-s-influence-on-julia/6403/23 "2020-10-20T20:35:02Z")

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> [@John\_Gibson](#):
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> If I have seen less far than others, it is because I was standing behind giants

Haha I love this quote! I cannot find a real reference for it, so please do share if you have. I think it is really profound, since sometimes being too focused on what others has done in the past, hinders your own ideas 🙂

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**Author:** ![sashmit](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sashmit/32/18791_2.png) [@sashmit](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sashmit)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2020, 8:55pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-wolfram-language-mathematica-s-influence-on-julia/6403/24 "2020-10-20T20:55:55Z")

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I would suggest mathmatica has very little influence these days because it is not very transparent. It’s all closed source. People in for example, well known corporation Microsoft, created, say, for example D\*, which does mathematica faster than mathematica does.

So a better question it ask is what do you care about? Generalization? Speed? Scale? Money?

At least in the modern theory of computer science people have learned to embrace the kripean semantics that naming things = creation of bias, which in that school of thought that you can just autocompute all the things, combinatorial branch and bound optimization is still very hard, but it depends on where you apply it (for example in microgrid optimization of power). Drop the necessary condition, and learn how to fix defects automatically. Save energy and see information theoritic “bits” of entropy as pollution you can “fix” if you apply reflexivity properly.

Sorry for the abstract language, just create positive feedback loops in your own lines of your own tunnel visioned and you can see what I and other people had apparently been thinking.

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**Author:** ![John\_Gibson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/john_gibson/32/5321_2.png) [@John\_Gibson](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/John_Gibson)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2020, 9:00pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-wolfram-language-mathematica-s-influence-on-julia/6403/25 "2020-10-20T21:00:11Z")

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The reference is [http://chaosbook.org/chapters/intro.pdf](http://chaosbook.org/chapters/intro.pdf), page 2. The quote is attributed to “Eduardo Specchio”, which is the author Predrag Cvitanović’s tongue-in-cheek name for Ed Spiegel.

[https://www.whoi.edu/press-room/obituary/edward-spiegel/](https://www.whoi.edu/press-room/obituary/edward-spiegel/)

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**Author:** ![sashmit](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sashmit/32/18791_2.png) [@sashmit](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sashmit)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2020, 9:20pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-wolfram-language-mathematica-s-influence-on-julia/6403/26 "2020-10-20T21:20:18Z")

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Cool book! To me, to understand the initial conditions or boundary conditions of whatever fractal dimensions can be thought differently. You can also frame questions using say breaking of symmetries and do lie integration in coexter groups and look and just count stuff. One good meta algorithm is when one problem sounds hard do the other problem, but there may be many stable manifold ways to see equivalence patterns between P=NP, Continuum dynamics and all of the dualities expressed in modern mathmatical physics. Luckily these days you can virtualize creating your dual diamond cutters and confine a particle beam to perform some controlled quasi monte carlo algo to compare some log odds and examine the rich structure of say the p-adic numbers using 1 second of wall clock time. Instead of say looking at the statistical mechanical properties of some continuum mechanics despite all the gauge theories that need local/global laws to do crypto quantum information theoretic tests that must exist because we still can’t integrate matter despite deformation theory and renormalization groups. I think categorification (creating endofunctors, and assuming everything is defined by it’s effects on everything else) is very useful since it allows thinking in very general systematic ways. Then you can start numerically computing in modern pure math terms and use algebraic geometry to deloop stuff.

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**Author:** ![mbauman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbauman/32/31082_2.png) [@mbauman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbauman)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2020, 9:28pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-wolfram-language-mathematica-s-influence-on-julia/6403/27 "2020-10-20T21:28:37Z")

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Goodness, are you trying to break some sort of record on the number of multisyllabic words you can cram into a post? You might find better success at engaging with folks if you can make things a little less abstract.

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**Author:** ![sashmit](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sashmit/32/18791_2.png) [@sashmit](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sashmit)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2020, 9:37pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-wolfram-language-mathematica-s-influence-on-julia/6403/28 "2020-10-20T21:37:48Z")

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(post deleted by author)

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**Author:** ![sgjanssens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@sgjanssens](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sgjanssens)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2020, 9:40pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-wolfram-language-mathematica-s-influence-on-julia/6403/29 "2020-10-20T21:40:06Z")

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> [@mbauman](#):
>
> You might find better success at engaging with folks if you can make things a little less abstract.

This is not abstraction, it is noise. (Here and in other topics as well, unfortunately.)

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2020, 10:44am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-wolfram-language-mathematica-s-influence-on-julia/6403/30 "2020-10-21T10:44:02Z")

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> [@sashmit](#):
>
> I think Scheme literally influenced Julia more than CLOS

I am sorry but I could not make sense of your post, or even decide if you are arguing the above.

In any case, since Julia is turning out to be successful, I imagine that a lot of people will claim that various ideas and languages influenced it, back to and including Babylonian clay tablets. This is normal.

I think it is best to just ask the originators of Julia about this. Or be conservative and just assume that the languages in the [Why we created Julia](https://julialang.org/blog/2012/02/why-we-created-julia/) announcement are the relevant ones.

Taking the “X influenced Y” game to its extremes can become meaningless pretty quickly. My favorite example is from pop music:

[![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/4/3/43fc099cc7a17e1aed74257b04df4ab5ed6a9270.jpeg "Axis of Awesome - 4 Four Chord Song (with song titles)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I)

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**Author:** ![chisquared](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/87869e/32.png) [@chisquared](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/chisquared)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2020, 1:58am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-is-wolfram-language-mathematica-s-influence-on-julia/6403/31 "2020-11-14T01:58:38Z")

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Looks like output from a text-generator bot to me. Perhaps with the first few words (sentences?) as a prompt.

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