Top all-time · #200
Wolfram Blog
Company blog · blog.wolfram.comprogrammingmath
Wolfram Blog is the company blog at blog.wolfram.com, writing about programming and math. Since 2007, 226 different Hacker News readers have linked it 380 times, most often “Why Wolfram tech isn’t open source (2019)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 6 of 40 sampled comments recommend it, 5 are critical?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Wolfram Blog posts on the company's closed-source stance, Mathematica tricks and one-liners, and science and math explainers such as sonic booms, rational approximations and logo generation.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Read Wolfram's latest announcements, events, news and developer insights. In-depth highlights of Wolfram technologies used across industry, research, education.
Most-linked posts?
- Why Wolfram tech isn’t open source (2019)11 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2019-04-02
- Putting the Wolfram Language (and Mathematica) on Every Raspberry Pi (2013)6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2013-11-21
- Why the Wolfram Language Is (Like) Open Source5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-12-01
- Sleuthing DarkSide Crypto-Ransom Payments with the Wolfram Language4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-05-25
- Launching the Wolfram Data Repository: Data Publishing That Really Works4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2017-04-20
- Predicting Who Will Win the World Cup with Wolfram Language4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2014-06-20
- The 2016 Wolfram One-Liner Competition Winners3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2017-01-31
- Wolfram Client Library for Python3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-05-17
- Lessons Learned Migrating from Python to the Wolfram Language3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-11-04
- The math of faster-than-sound freefall3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2012-10-25
What Hacker News says?
The article is a bit older, but metadata analytics can be used to "unveil" the key conspirators that led to what we today know as the "American Revolution"[1] - please note how little data they use to find out who calls the shots, and whom you might want to disappear if you wanted to keep the colonies closely aligned with George III. Widespread enough, this can be used to find dissidents today, suppressing ethically…
Comment linking /2017/06/29/analyzing-social-networks-of-colonial-boston-revolutionaries-with-the-wolfram-language/
on “European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communication”Submitted The solution of the Zodiac killer’s 340-character cipher as a story · 686 points
HN discussionThe speed of sound actually decreases, and then increases again as you go up in altitude. So when they say faster than the speed of sound, they mean the local speed of sound (hence the sonic boom). This is explored (with graphs!) here for the case of Mr. Baumgartner's jump: http://blog.wolfram.com/2012/10/24/falling-faster-than-the-s...
Comment linking /2012/10/24/falling-faster-than-the-speed-of-sound/
on “Alan Eustace Jumps from Stratosphere, Breaking Felix Baumgartner’s World Record”Submitted Extending Van Gogh’s Starry Night with Inpainting as a story · 281 points
HN discussionSort of Wolframs reply to why Wolfram is not open-source: https://blog.wolfram.com/2019/04/02/why-wolfram-tech-isnt-op...
Comment linking /2019/04/02/why-wolfram-tech-isnt-open-source-a-dozen-reasons/
on “Free Wolfram Engine for Developers”Submitted Why Wolfram tech isn’t open source (2019) as a story · 246 points
HN discussionTo go along with it, making XKCD diagrams in Mathematica: http://blog.wolfram.com/2012/10/05/automating-xkcd-diagrams-...
Comment linking /2012/10/05/automating-xkcd-diagrams-transforming-serious-to-funny/
on “Show HN: a web-based xkcd-style comix editor”Submitted Announcing Wolfram Programming Lab as a story · 232 points
HN discussionThere is an interesting article about the reasons why Wolfram decided against open source and why their products would not have been possible otherwise: https://blog.wolfram.com/2019/04/02/why-wolfram-tech-isnt-op... As much as I don’t like it either, I can understand their perspective and actually believe that it might have been very hard to create and sustain such a comprehensive, thoughtfully and consistently des…
Comment linking /2019/04/02/why-wolfram-tech-isnt-open-source-a-dozen-reasons/
on “Mathics: A free, open-source alternative to Mathematica”Submitted World Cup Follow-Up: Update of Winning Probabilities and Betting Results as a story · 206 points
HN discussionNeat concept. It reminds me of the Wolfram One-Liner competition http://blog.wolfram.com/2016/11/09/the-2016-wolfram-one-line...
Comment linking /2016/11/09/the-2016-wolfram-one-liner-competition-winners/
on “Dwitter – A social network for short JavaScript demos”Submitted Launching Today: Mathematica Online as a story · 203 points
HN discussionNot exhaustive, but you might find this interesting: https://blog.wolfram.com/2021/05/25/sleuthing-darkside-crypt...
Comment linking /2021/05/25/sleuthing-darkside-crypto-ransom-payments-with-the-wolfram-language/
on “DOJ seizes $2.3M in cryptocurrency paid to the ransomware extortionists Darkside”Submitted Wolfram Programming Cloud Is Live as a story · 186 points
HN discussionHave you heard this Wolfram TED talk about the subject: http://blog.wolfram.com/2010/11/23/conrad-wolframs-ted-talk-...
Comment linking /2010/11/23/conrad-wolframs-ted-talk-stop-teaching-calculating-start-teaching-math/
on “Programming as a Way of Thinking”Submitted Is there any point to the 12 times table? as a story · 185 points
HN discussionFor anyone curious or who is still attached to pi, here is a response to the tau manifesto: https://blog.wolfram.com/2015/06/28/2-pi-or-not-2-pi/
Comment linking /2015/06/28/2-pi-or-not-2-pi/
on “The Byte Order Fiasco”Submitted All Rational Approximations of Pi Are Useless as a story · 185 points
HN discussion>> But I don't know what he could be up to. A couple of things come to mind. Not necessarily nefarious. Firstly, I remember watching a TED video[1] by Steven's brother Conrad, which was passionate about using computers for teaching Mathematics. Perhaps this Pi initiative is less commercial than philanthropic and was initiated by Conrad. Secondly, if you look at Wolfram's own blog post[2] on the Pi release of Mathema…
Comment linking /2013/11/21/putting-the-wolfram-language-and-mathematica-on-every-raspberry-pi/
on “Mathematica on Raspberry Pi for free”Submitted Announcing Wolfram SystemModeler as a story · 167 points
HN discussionI think you're missing the point about why the Wolfram Language is going to be useful on a PI. I don't think the majority case will be mathematics. See here for some ideas: http://blog.wolfram.com/2013/11/21/putting-the-wolfram-langu... And re free tools: I doubt very much that Sage has any mechanism for flashing LEDs through the GPIO pins of the Pi, or doing image processing on a RaspiCam, or balancing an inverted…
Comment linking /2013/11/21/putting-the-wolfram-language-and-mathematica-on-every-raspberry-pi/
on “Mathematica on Raspberry Pi for free”Submitted Introducing Tweet-a-Program as a story · 158 points
HN discussion"...free for anyone to use for personal purposes. (There’s also going to be a licensing mechanism for commercial uses, other Linux ARM systems, and so on.)" http://blog.wolfram.com/2013/11/21/putting-the-wolfram-langu...
Comment linking /2013/11/21/putting-the-wolfram-language-and-mathematica-on-every-raspberry-pi/
on “Mathematica on Raspberry Pi for free”Submitted Flying with Machine Guns? as a story · 156 points
HN discussionYou can read Wolfram's post about it here. http://blog.wolfram.com/2013/11/21/putting-the-wolfram-langu... Note that it includes a beta version of the new Wolfram Language!
Comment linking /2013/11/21/putting-the-wolfram-language-and-mathematica-on-every-raspberry-pi/
on “Mathematica on Raspberry Pi for free”Submitted Programming Minecraft on the Raspberry Pi as a story · 155 points
HN discussionIt is now possible to use Python inside Mathematica. Take a look at: https://blog.wolfram.com/2019/05/16/announcing-the-wolfram-c... https://reference.wolfram.com/language/WolframClientForPytho... It is also possible to run the Wolfram Kernel inside a Jupyter Notebook: https://github.com/WolframResearch/WolframLanguageForJupyter
Comment linking /2019/05/16/announcing-the-wolfram-client-library-for-python/
on “Python Programming and Numerical Methods: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists”Submitted Version 11 of Mathematica as a story · 146 points
HN discussion>Did any of these open-source projects that lag behind had a budget that at least was of the same order of magnitude of their proprietary counterparts? I don't think so. No they didn't and that's why I put those lagging open-source projects as examples to make readers imagine that an alternate-history-open-source Mathematica may have lagged behind like them too. I think you lost track of the argument put forth by th…
Comment linking /2019/04/02/why-wolfram-tech-isnt-open-source-a-dozen-reasons/
on “Why Wolfram tech isn’t open source (2019)”Submitted After 100 Years, Ramanujan Gap Filled (2013) as a story · 127 points
HN discussion
