Stephen Wolfram Livestreams

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others (152 videos)

Weekly ask-me-anything about science & technology

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New episode streaming Friday, December 27, at 3:30pm ET. Submit your questions

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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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 79] »

59 minutes

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Hey, Dr. Wolfram, I'm Sneed, and I work within the agricultural industry. Can you see cellular automata benefitting my industry in the future? Can they potentially predict crop yields? Have you read Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP)? What do you think about this book? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 78] »

1 hour 13 minutes

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If traceroute was disabled, or if all servers refused to send TTL expirations, would there be a way to trace internet traffic? Or would the internet be untraceable, kind of analogous to a TOR network? Can you describe how packets get dropped? Is there a decision made, a timeout or some physically mediated loss? Are there different implementations for routers/servers? ​Would love to hear about the limitations of Moore's law. Is Moore's law still relevant to set corporate targets as companies like Intel use it as a benchmark of progress? ​If an alien civilization sent a spaceship from Proxima Centauri to Earth at the speed of light, could we detect it before it arrives? ​If we did have a "transporter" to send ourselves to another galaxy as a signal, would packet loss be a severe danger for those intergalactic signals? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 77] »

1 hour 29 minutes

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What do you think Euclid would have accomplished if he had a computer (and a Wolfram Language license)? In what ways are you better than AI? JavaScript will run out of milliseconds in 270,000 years. Have you ever written code that created a date object past that time? How far in the future could Wolfram Language represent? ​Is it possible to have a civilization purely based on biological technology, for example building microscopes, airplanes, etc. made out of organic materials and by growing them somehow? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 76] »

1 hour 41 minutes

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Could you build a reverse natural language understanding engine? One that would take in Wolfram Language/JavaScript/Python and output natural language explaining what the code is doing? Dr. Wolfram, any suggestion on what problems/casework to use for introductory programming? Why is it harder to compute integrals rather than derivatives? Are there any major changes to the design, architecture or low-level code of computers that are now standardized that you would change if you could? Are there laws governing the development of human history? Any tricks for reading textbooks that maximize the understanding of the material? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 75] »

47 minutes

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​Do you think it's possible to time travel? Has Darwinian evolution stopped in humans? If so, are we descending to extinction because of dysgenics? How likely is it for a big asteroid to hit Earth? ​​How far ahead can you talk about human evolution adapting with technological progression? Could gene drive technology replace natural evolution in favor of intelligent design? View Less »
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