Stephen Wolfram Livestreams

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others (159 videos)

Weekly ask-me-anything about science & technology

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New episode streaming Friday, May 23, 2025 at 3:30pm ET. Submit your questions

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 33] »

1 hour 17 minutes

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What's that nested circular artifact on the shelf behind you (next to the spikey)? what math concept could it be used to teach? Does the pattern of shell formation have a mathematical 'scheme'? Do you think lifeforms have a baseline program that is informed and "coded" by our environment and experiences? if so is that baseline program evolving over generations or is it hard wired? Epigenetics if you don't chew on hard food for hundreds of years your jaws will get small your teeth will be crooked you'll have trouble breathing at night, etc. How did butterflies with their 4-stage life cycle evolve, where only the last stage is capable of reproducing? How do bean plants find their poles to climb up? How would you recommend developing a work ethic to get into science and technology as someone who is younger and a beginner? Why don't trees or plants resonate and break in high winds like tall buildings or towers? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 32] »

1 hour 22 minutes

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In addition to keystrokes, do you monitor your words spoken? Does your system record all your passwords? How do vaccines work? If a disease is such that the thing which kills is the immune response itself could a vaccine based on these principles be actually dangerous? Have you ever met Tim Berners-Lee, Douglas Engelbart, Edward Feigenbaum, and/or Shafi Goldwasser? ​Stephen Wolfram, my 3 years old sister told me that she doesn't likes math, and doesn't want to play with science with me, what can I do to change her mind? ​What are time crystals? Do they become ordinary space crystals when moving very fast? ​Do we have explanation why people have sense of discreteness (symbols, objects and such). Is world implicitly discrete or we just perceive it that way? ​Can't we upload all the data about the human body and fix everything. We have computing power and A.I to classify why don't we understand it? ​Has anyone looked at the complexity of a cell? can we not say that it exhibits intelligence? can intelligence exist without brains? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 31] »

56 minutes

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​​Have you studied the Crick-Mitchison theory of REM sleep? Do you think that their theory is relevant to artificial intelligence and/or the theory of pattern recognition? ​​Thoughts on the significance of the triangle and why it seems to be one of if not the strongest 2d shape? ​​Are quasicrystals useful? ​​What does it mean to map a brain? Why is there a race to map the brain correctly? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 30] »

1 hour 14 minutes

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​​Have you discussed the Wolfram Physics Project with any string theorists? ​​​What is the possibility of building an unmanned space craft to 'hitch a ride' on a comet, to reach (and perhaps launch) the space craft out of the solar system? ​​​I recently watched a video on youtube by Anton Petrov where he discussed a leak from the radio telescope laboratory about an unusual radio signal from our nearest stellar neighbor, alpha Centauri, and in the video he said that the reason the signal was so unusual was that it was stuck to a specific frequency of 982.002 MHz and I was wondering your thoughts on the unusual nature of it's specificity. ​Can you explain how APIs work and some difficulties in matching property addresses (variability in how an address is written) to relational databases? ​If the average human brain was represented as a PC, what would its technical specifications be? (Core count, clock speed, RAM, storage space, etc.) ​Why is difficult for our brains to perform many simple calculations in a row? ​Is the eightfoldwiay of Murray Gell-Mann easier or more difficult than just learning Quantum chromodynamics? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 29] »

2 hours 3 minutes

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​Any tips on how to make nice presentations? ​Why are there so many concepts in math that are not realized in the physical world? ​What cryptocurrencies are you a fan of? Do you think any of them will "win big" in 2021? Any new players to watch? ​Are big banks and governments trying to undermine the legitimacy of cryptocurrencies? ​What do you think about China's new digital currency DCEP (e-yuan)? ​Is finding the shortest proof of a theorem computationally irreducible? If you were sent into the past with one object of your choice with no return, what would you do to speed up human progress? (pick your favourite period before 20th century) Do you think you will live forever now that genetic reprogramming has successfully reversed aging in lab grown human cells and organoids? David Sinclair and his Harvard associates have done this successfully in mice using Yamanaka's Nobel Prize winning gene factors. Also, are you currently doing anything to extend your life? Do you have a Wolfram Spikey on the top of your Christmas tree? Did you know any of the people involved with designing Ada Language? Is there a formal proof that computational irreducibility exists? Is it possible that we will be able to predict any cellular automaton? Is it possible to make a wire from space to earth and pull things up to space? What will math look like in 1000 years? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 28] »

1 hour 27 minutes

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Who are your favourite Science fiction authors? What are your favourite stories/movies? Why do people have emotions and feelings? How do emotions and feelings work? Happiness, anger, etc... In the space of all possible mental states, what is the ratio of positive vs negative states? Is this a relative quantity? Does it obey certain transformations? ​If people didn't have emotions then nothing would ever get done. ​Do you think the set of emotions is finite? Is it possible evolution to bring a new kind of emotion in that set? Can we artificially create a new emotion? ​Given our brains are most likely the source of our thoughts/emotions/etc. If there is a finite set of combinations of matter in the brain, could there then be a set of all possible thoughts? ​What about the movie The Matrix? ​What about the movie The Matrix? ​ If the resistance goes to zero, would the electron start accelerating without bound? ​ Why doesn't every single thought episode last forever? why does thought disappear after it arise? ​ How do you get your staff to get so much done, especially so much hard stuff?? View Less »
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