Stephen Wolfram Livestreams

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

Weekly ask-me-anything about science & technology

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New episode streaming Friday, February 7, at 3:30pm ET. Submit your questions

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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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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