Stephen Wolfram Livestreams

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others (155 videos)

Weekly ask-me-anything about science & technology

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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 95] »

1 hour 6 minutes

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​​What's the difference between bits and bytes? Can you talk about what a "sufficiently smart compiler" is? ​​​​Sometimes I wonder if a program can be "lifted" to an unrelated mathematical representation, in which certain transformation rules would discover a more efficient optimization than in the absence of such "lifting." I think this requires "multicompilation." View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 94] »

1 hour 2 minutes

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​​​Does evolution move toward complexity or simplicity? ​​​We should breed extremophile bacteria and algae to terraform planets by slowly exposing them to toxic atmospheres. ​​​ Can bacteria be diabetic? ​​Did Craig Venter indeed create synthetic life, or did he just change the existing species? ​​Maybe there are as many species on Earth as there are different CA rules that exhibit DNA patterns of the mechanical structure of an organism. ​​The fact that you can edit genes makes me think that so much can be done to cure disorders and diseases. ​​What if the malaria parasite has some kind of function in biological systems that we're completely unaware of? This is the kind of thing I'm always wondering about. View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 93] »

1 hour 23 minutes

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​​​Do you think having many (eventually thousands of) IoT devices will necessitate some kind of additional routing logic on local networks to prevent primary devices (desktops) from being slowed? ​​The implementation of IPv6 solved the problem of the number of possible internet addresses, at least. ​​​​As higher frequencies are utilized in Wi-Fi to achieve higher bandwidth, Wi-Fi range and penetration are reduced. Is there some tech that would simultaneously increase both bandwidth AND range? ​​​​​If gravitational waves travel through Penrose's eons, wouldn't these gravitational echoes make every particle wiggle at the quantum level, considering that there is a "noise" in spacetime? ​​​How can we still see radiation from the early universe? Did it expand faster than light? ​​​​​Was it like a balloon expanding, where the light source was in the beginning expanded along with the universe? ​​Is it theoretically possible to detect individual gravitons by launching space probes into black holes? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 92] »

1 hour 11 minutes

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​What's the densest thing in the universe? I've heard that black holes don't count—why? The entire mass of the Earth at neutron star density would fit into a sphere of 305 m in diameter (the size of the Arecibo Telescope). What if black holes are like visible branchings in the multiway system? Consider the existence of white holes. So if there is "another universe" on the other side, that universe is causally... AFAIK, fractal-like patterns are the best method to receive signals, but we now have cellular automata—which can maybe do it even better? ​I lived in a 16th-floor apartment across from a field of transmission towers for an AM station. There were 5–6 radio towers, the closest about 200 yards away. So the AM station could be heard on lots of electronic devices in our house: telephones, answering machine, recording devices, etc. (The AM station towers were powerful.) Can it be that one day we will be able to see into Earth's past, finding an object in space that mirrors light left by Earth a long time ago? ​I can imagine future humans, having forgotten we sent such a signal on a long round-trip journey, receiving our message and jumping to all sorts of funny conclusions, depending on what we sent. View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 91] »

1 hour 7 minutes

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​Can you explain rasterization? Does the human visual system use a molecular-scale version of rasterization? When I close my eyes and apply pressure, why do I see colored dynamic geometric patterns? ​I also see the grid, and it's interesting how it fades when your normal vision fades back in, and the gray/black squares sometimes oscillate while maintaining the grid structure. Do you have any stories about Fresnel lenses? I just got the Meta Quest 2 VR headset and it uses them—the same kind that a rear-projection TV or a lighthouse uses, which is amusing. ​Considering visual perception discontinuous or discrete, can we consider it quantized? In that case, could it be calculated as "discrete packets of visual perception," based on quantum physics? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 90] »

52 minutes

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Considering visual perception discontinuous or discrete, can we also consider it quantized? In that case, could it be calculated as "discrete packets of visual perception," based on quantum physics? If the level of CO2 was much higher in the past, why wasn't there a runaway greenhouse effect back then? I looked into it, and apparently limestone rocks absorb carbonic acid in rain and "scrub" the CO2 out of the atmosphere, but it takes forever! Do the electron orbitals of an atom ever rotate? Do they rotate at the same rate as the nucleus, or can they rotate independently? Is this the same property as electron spin, or is it separate? View Less »
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