Stephen Wolfram Livestreams

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

Weekly ask-me-anything about science & technology

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New episode streaming Friday, November 29, at 3:30pm ET. Submit your questions

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 85] »

1 hour 16 minutes

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So do we live in a simulation or not? So how do we perceive change? Why is motion possible? Why do we perceive that we can make "choices"? What does it mean to make a choice? But every observer observes the same dimensionless constants (like the fine-structure constant)—we don't have any choice about that observation. Or is 1/137 something that lies on an observable manifold of the ruliad? ​​What if the beautiful images of stars and galaxies really are a molecule in another universe and time is very, very slow in that universe from our view? ​I always thought, what if we are like bacteria living on a bit of sand on the bottom of an alien's shoe while he rides an elevator, and what happens when the elevator stops? ​​Moving at the speed of thought—is there a max on how fast we can think? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 84] »

1 hour 15 minutes

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Can you explain why Earth's air doesn't escape into the vacuum of space, considering gas expands to fill the available volume without a container? Why are there these phases of matter? Are these phases "real" or do they depend on what we can "observe"? Sodium chloride makes incredibly square crystals. The patterns snowflakes are predisposed to follow also drive the patterns that evolving vegetation (ferns, and the two types of trees) grows/grew into. It is all super interesting. How perfect are crystals? Can they be used to detect the microscopic structure of space? If the atoms of space act like a superfluid, would that mean vortices may arise if the universe is rotating? And yet diffusion doesn't work in space. This is why I think it is electrostatic forces that must initiate coalescence. Could photons frozen in absolute zero create "hard light"? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 83] »

1 hour 20 minutes

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Is 10 a special number in any way? Why is scientific notation (or the digit system) in base 10? Is it just because we have 5×2 fingers? Lots of flowers have five-fold symmetry. ​Empedocles believed arms, fingers and legs just roamed around as creatures of their own, eventually merging into all kinds of creatures, and only the five-fingered, four-limbed animals won out. It's like an ancient Greek natural selection. Why are some animals cold-blooded? Can the Wolfram Physics Project be used to simulate models of new medications for diseases? #WolframPharma. Will we ever successfully be able to use cryogenics to freeze humans? Won't the ice crystals rupture our cells, like a banana left in the freezer and then thawing it out? Is it true that cats domesticated themselves compared to other animals that humans domesticated for a purpose? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 82] »

1 hour 22 minutes

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​​The term "spatom" as a portmanteau of space atom (atom of space): yes or no? ​​Did you ever meet Vladimir Arnold? What do you think of the Erlangen program? ​​​​Can spoken language be broken into a set of logical primitives? What major attempts have been made at this, and in what ways did they fail? Is GPT-3 an example of building up from language primitives? ​​​Language is to all things; the context of its content. ​​​Will we have better designed/optimized cities, homes, everyday objects in the future? ​​​Since the world is now built around humans, would humanoid robots be the most general (like a Rosie for in-home tasks)? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 81] »

1 hour 15 minutes

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​​​Should an international agreement be created so that artificial general intelligence has rights before AGIs even exist, so that they feel their rights are respected? ​​How do we know you are Stephen Wolfram the human and not an AI generating an artificial Stephen Wolfram? How could we perform the Turing test for this livestream? ​​Are you hopeful for brain–computer interfacing in the near future? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 80] »

1 hour 32 minutes

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​Topics: large language models like GPT-3, the way they work and how to ask the right questions What are the dangers of space junk around the Earth, e.g. will it pose a risk to commercial space hotels in the future as the industry grows? It seems like science literacy is on the decline. What can we do about it? What does it mean to be scientifically literate? Stephen Wolfram, do you think the scientific process has been damaged during the pandemic, possibly because of the speed of information/opinions on the internet? Stephen Wolfram, why is the development of nanotechnology so slow despite its effectiveness in medicine, oncology, etc.? View Less »
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