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 50] »

1 hour 39 minutes

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What is dark matter? What is the "fabric" of spacetime? What gives rise to it? What is it made of? Is there something smaller than quarks? How do black holes appear? Going continuously from 0 topological holes to 1... Is there a computational system similar to quarks? In the Wolfram Physics Project, could something, say a black hole, leave a wake/churn in the atoms of space in its past light cone? Perhaps there is something lingering that's detectable. Is the structure of electrons a mystery? And if we knew what electrons were made of, would we be able to duplicate objects? Is it really possible to get something from literally nothing? It is often said that "nothing can escape black holes, not even light." Can gravitational waves escape black holes? If you manage to send two orbiting black holes that are about to merge into a larger black hole, will the gravitational waves still be produced? Does your theory of physics have anything to say about that? How could we be reliable judges of what is metaphysically possible, rather than what seems possible to us given our current evidence (epistemic possibility)? How could we get evidence about which formal systems are metaphysically possible to realize? What are the implications of "hypercomputation" being a possibility and hence existing? What was your last "crazy" or "unrealistic but interesting" thought with regard to science or your thoughts about reality? A speculation that isn't based in any research, but is an intuition? If a piece of space breaks off, does it just "float around" in the universe? If so, does gravity increase where that piece passes? If a piece of universe detaches from our universe in a supercritical black hole, is that piece of universe contained in such a black hole still subject to hashing radiation? Was the universe created from an explosion from a super super super super super... black hole? Regarding the close-to-critical black holes: What would you see the "handful of threads" that connect it to our universe against? In an actual microscope, you see a structure against a black background. What's the background here? Could black holes be a pinch in space where it goes inside out? If a black hole rotates with that critical speed, could it expose hypercomputation? Are there any plans to somehow incorporate any formal method tooling? View Less »

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 »

Stephen Wolfram Livestreams

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