Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others: Stephen Wolfram Livestreams

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 »

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 »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 89] »

1 hour 8 minutes

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What is quantum chemistry good for? Anything interesting? Chemistry is great! Just fertilizer has made an incredible impact throughout history. The Haber process almost singlehandedly changed human history. Isn't organic chemistry/biology the study of programmable matter? Can you tell the story of traveling through a central processing unit from the electron's perspective? FETs use voltage at the gate to make a field that "pinches off" the flow of current from the drain to the source. View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 88] »

1 hour 7 minutes

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How does an Easter Bunny lay eggs? Why is the Planck temperature the limit of potential heat? Is void space really void, or is there something there? Does that mean there are more dimensions than the typical ones? From how many discrete stars was our Earth made? View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 87] »

1 hour 20 minutes

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How was it possible for civilizations across the world to develop pyramids independently (Egypt and Mayans/Aztecs)? Is there any scientific significance to this? Does the double-helix shape in DNA show up anywhere else in nature? Are there any examples of logical gates being built out of chemical reactions? What breakthroughs are needed to achieve this? How many gates are needed for a programming language like C? Is it necessary to have supercomputers to do meaningful biomolecule-level simulations? What life forms have arbitrary differences between individuals and what life forms have meaningfully "unique" individuals? Are Darwin's survival of the fittest, evolution and machine learning all basically the same thing? If not, how do they differ? Can you please say something about the formation of buckyballs? How are gemstones formed and how can we model all gem features? Colors, textures, asterism, anisotropy, everything? What do you know? In quartz, I also notice imperfections like streaks; seems to be the molecular analog to cellular automata. View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 86] »

1 hour 33 minutes

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Thoughts on longevity research and its feasibility? Does computational irreducibility have practical implications for the difficulty of solving this complex biological problem? Also, do you ever get sad about the shortness of the current human lifespan causing us to miss out on the (potentially unimaginable) future opportunities for understanding the universe? Do you think a multicomputational approach to medicine will detect disease first by observing visual systems or chemical systems or otherwise? Is this discussion of mortality curves related to the survivorship function? Would there be any justification for pursuing eternal life for humans, if feasible? Aging might be the condition that makes the most sense to study economically, in terms of the money spent by health systems on related problems overall. According to Michael Graziano, immortality will be achieved by uploading human consciousness into computers. The discussion today reminded me of this post I saw where it asked if you could live for 150 years but you had to upload your brain to the metaverse and give up your real body, would you? Would you upload your brain? Yes, but uploading a copy of your brain into a computer means there are two of you, and computational irreducibility means that the two are different from each other! Is bureaucratic inefficiency analogous to aging in biological systems? That the system over time grinds to a halt and dies due to build up of systematic inefficiencies? Can we apply life extension to institutions? View Less »

Stephen Wolfram Livestreams

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others (151 videos)