Stephen Wolfram (born 29 August 1959) is a British computer scientist, entrepreneur and former physicist known for his contributions to theoretical physics; his pioneering work on knowledge-based programming; as the CEO of Wolfram Research and chief designer of Mathematica and the Wolfram Alpha answer engine; and as the author of the book A New Kind of Science.
Wolfram was educated at Eton College, but left prematurely in 1976. He entered St John's College, Oxford at age 17 but found lectures "awful", and left in 1978 without graduating. He received a PhD in particle physics from the California Institute of Technology at age 20. Wolfram's thesis committee included Richard Feynman, Peter Goldreich and Steven Frautschi while the thesis research was supervised by Geoffrey C. Fox and Hugh David Politzer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Wolfram
