{
  "id": 146386,
  "title": "In Memory of My Wife, Elise Cawley, with Thanks for 36 Wonderful Years",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/04/in-memory-of-my-wife-elise-cawley-with-thanks-for-36-wonderful-years",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-08-04T18:51:38.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Hacker News Best",
    "slug": "hacker-news-best",
    "url": "https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2026/08/in-memory-of-my-wife-elise-cawley-1961-2026-with-thanks-for-36-wonderful-years/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "My wife, Elise Cawley, passed away after recovering from heart surgery and attending a celebration for one of our children. We had been together for 36 wonderful years. I first met Elise in New York City in September 1990, when she was a brilliant young pure mathematician sitting on the floor of a friend's apartment. We began talking daily and remained so until her passing a week ago. Elise was deeply thematic, able to grasp the essence of things with remarkable ease. She loved creating beauty in mathematics, interior design, architecture, and personal style. A forceful intellect, kind and sweet, Elise was persistent and often feisty in arguing for what she believed to be true. Despite her impressive knowledge of abstract mathematics, she was fundamentally a humanist, focusing on human connections and classicism. She had a lively spontaneity and drive towards intellectual and aesthetic rigor. Elise was married to four children, who were a defining part of her life. She took great pride in each of them and built a warm, architecturally beautiful home with creative design. Elise was a top mathematician, but she also saw elegance and abstract geometrical patterns in her work. She referred to herself as a \"retired mathematician,\" but would still engage eagerly with complex mathematical concepts. During our relationship, we never directly worked together on intellectual projects due to our strong-willed natures and different thinking styles. However, I often shared my work with her, and she would effortlessly identify deeper themes and explain them back to me. Elise believed that axiomatic formalization was not the true essence of mathematics and that it was more human. She also asserted that the fundamental abstractions in mathematics are the concept of a point (equivalent to space, continuity, and infinity) and the concept of number. She saw physics as differing from mathematics mainly in its introduction of the concept of time. Despite her original thinking, Elise also valued existing wisdom and conventional ways of doing things, often reminding me not to try to solve everything from first principles. Being with Elise was a constant adventure, characterized by spontaneity, precision, and perfection.",
  "summary": "Article URL: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2026/08/in-memory-of-my-wife-elise-cawley-1961-2026-with-thanks-for-36-wonderful-years/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49173165 Points: 427 # Comments: 18",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}