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 49] »

1 hour 22 minutes

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What happens if you fall into the ocean from a great height? From what I have read, it's like hitting concrete. Can you explain the science behind this? Dr. Wolfram, can you explain the origin of the white trail from jets at high altitude? Thank you. If we rubbed mineral oil/baby oil on us, would we move faster in the water? How long would we survive if the Earth left the Sun's orbit, going away from the Sun? Could everything that gets sucked into all black holes everywhere in the universe go to the same place? Do black holes rotate? Can they distort the spacetime around them? What is the reason for the distribution of matter and antimatter throughout the universe? Why is there much less antimatter? View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 48] »

1 hour 13 minutes

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Are you familiar with knot theory? Apparently former NASA physicist Thad Roberts derived the charge of the electron from the hyperbolic figure-eight knot. He recommended using Mathematica to verify. Why does computer code involve math? Why isn't it just a set of linear instructions that sometimes hop around, like a choose-your-own-adventure book? What type of computer logic is most efficient (binary, ternary, ...)? I hear that all Boolean functions can be constructed from only NAND. Is this true of any other simple Boolean function? Why does NAND realize NAND? Why are we only considering first-order derivatives of position (velocity) and second order (acceleration)? Why are higher-order derivatives apparently not relative? What is the derivative of acceleration called? Do you think emotions will emerge out of intelligence? If computer scientists continue to make general AI, do you think the more "general" or "intelligent" it gets, the more "emotional" it will get? View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 47] »

1 hour 17 minutes

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Why do server farms consume so much power? What advances are possible with parallel computing to reduce the power consumption or get more computations for the same amount of power? Have you ever had a situation where UUIDs collided and caused some sort of issue? Why does Bitcoin use so much power? What is the correlation between sleep and weight loss? Side note: Wolfram|Alpha lists the "universe atom count" as 6×10⁷⁹ atoms, but a 256-bit UUID would have just 1.16×10⁷⁷ options, so we may have a problem labeling the universe's atoms. How was the "universe atom count" calculated? How do you convert black and white video to color? How much sleep do you get a night? What kind of car do you drive? What's the difference between the technology that fascinates you vs. technology that you just see as utilitarian? Can you explain the difference between DC and AC, please? If I walk into a very powerful solenoid, will the magnetic fields affect my nervous system or have any other physical effect on me? View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 46] »

56 minutes

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Are research papers useful? How should I write them and when? What do you think of research in engineering? Isn't it better to work in a company that specializes in a certain field and knows it in and out and come up with something revolutionary instead of working at a university where everything is rather theoretical? About 20 years ago, I heard about holographic storage. What happened with this kind of technology that it didn't go forward? Why do DVDs need to spin these days? Why not just scan top to bottom directly into memory? Are scanning optics not good enough for that? How does DVD-RW work? Never understood that one. Follow-up question to storing information: Are there at present optical end-to-end computers that do not have "storage" but use working memory with an optical processing unit? And would it be easier or harder to have a multivalued "not binary" optical computer than an electronic computer? View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 45] »

1 hour 25 minutes

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If there's a way to create climate change, does that mean there's a way to reverse it? I feel like the greenhouse effect was based on Venus's greenhouse effect. But Venus is ~95% CO₂, has no magnetic field, is a lot closer to the Sun, is tidally locked to the Sun, does not a have moon so has no spin, there is no carbon cycle on Venus, no plants or algae, less gravity, etc. Carbon capture research has all the focus. Isn't this just kicking the can down the road? The carbon is stored but not converted, so what is the real benefit? Is climate change necessarily bad? As in, what equilibrium could we reach after the instability has stabilized? Would that new equilibrium necessarily be worse than the one we have enjoyed for a while? But if we do that, do we really understand the effect well enough? I mean, you don't know if more plankton is good for the carbon dioxide situation, but maybe it may make something worse too. Think how lucky human beings are. We had one asteroid hit the Earth to make the Moon = seasons, plants grow to make oil and coal. The K–PG asteroid kills all the giant dinosaurs that would have eaten us. We get free reign on the Earth and enough energy-dense oil to create economies to jumpstart up to nuclear fission and fusion and become self-sustaining. We are pretty dang lucky. Do you think there are life forms out there whose spectrum of visible light is totally different than ours? Do you think there's a plateau we must break through for space exploration to be more feasible, or is our progress as is good enough? Dr. Wolfram, thank you for your time! "Sustainable" energy is a major issue these days, but I'm skeptical that renewables like solar and wind can meet growing demand. What are your thoughts on fission and Gen IV reactor technology? We could study Moon rocks in greater detail, and then after that, we can do it again. View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 44] »

1 hour 30 minutes

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What are some of the NKS implications for medicine? What's the minimum amount of DNA pairs that is not "obviously basic" and could perform universal computation? Would this be the lower bound for some heuristic of complexity of life? Is there any fundamental computational boundary to a super-intelligent AI doctor capable of connecting all the medical specialties? Why are we are not prioritising research in longevity? What makes HeLa cells "immortal" and how common are they in humans? Or was Henrietta the only person ever to have "immortal" cells? Do other species have cells like HeLa cells? Why can't we reproduce cell membranes? Aren't they made up of proteins? How do you organise/prepare for a talk? How many hours should a scientist work per day? Why isn't nuclear power used more and is there a way to make it smaller and safer so that it can be used like portable power generators? What do you feel is the place of philosophy in modern science? View Less »

Stephen Wolfram Livestreams

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