Born in 1959, Wolfram won a scholarship to Eton College at the age of 12, became interested in particle physics aged 14 and two years later wrote a paper that was published in a prestigious journal (Australian Journal of Physics, vol 28, p 479). At 17 he went to the University of Oxford, but left two years later to take up a research post at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. By the age of 20 he was working alongside legendary physicists Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann. He won a MacArthur “genius” award a year later. “If I can’t understand something, then it’s probably nonsense,” he says.
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