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 11] »

1 hour 7 minutes

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What is dark matter? Why is the Sun's corona hotter than its core? Q4kids, are white holes only theoretical or are they real? Is a black hole a sphere with condensed light and matter? or does all that light and matter go somewhere? A question from 8 years old boy from Houston enjoying this stream but can't stop himself from asking: is it possible now to clone a dinosaur (given that proper quality DNA material will be found)? Thanks in Advance! Stephen, how can we tell the difference between science and pseudoscience? ​In convection, what drives the flow of air/fluid in the first place? is it just the potential energy stored in the temperature gradient? ​​Is there any possibility of creation of dark matter in fusion reactors like tokamak? ​Why is the moon the same size as the sun? [from what we see on Earth]. ​​What do you do for fun? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 10] »

1 hour 41 minutes

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​​What is the difference between fusion and fission? What is the difference between regular helium, like those in balloons, and Helium-3? Can you explain the physics of why ice is slippery? Would you mind explaining Van der Waals force? I recently draw a social network form my .gml file using Graph3D in Mathematica, but when I put more than 1200 nodes, all color of my nodes became blue instead of my settings. Why? Is it a bug? Does quantum mechanical tunneling play much of a role in nuclear fusion? ​Are you planning on ever releasing the raw data of all the possible simple programs you generated while working on "A New Kind of Science"? A friend and I want to work on a neural network to see if we can make something that discriminates complex behavior. When Andromeda collides with the Milky Way, what's going to happen to life on Earth, neighboring planets, and solar systems? What advice would you give to someone who is starting to study analysis from scratch (i.e. from Zermelo Fraenkel axioms and so on)? Speak about Einstein's correct prediction of the perihelion of Mercury when people realized Einstein's theory was better than Newton's. What might be the equivalent for the Wolfram Physics Project? What gave you the confidence to study physics since you were a kid?. What advice would you give to a kid interested in learning that has an internet connection and a Raspberry Pi? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 9] »

1 hour 35 minutes

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When will we run out of scientific innovations? Is there a limit to technology? Is it possible to build a place without gravity? Do you think there is anything between the known particles (and Planck length 10^-33) and your hypergraphs (at length 10^-93), such as another set of "elementary" particles? Will technology allow for one true universal language [for the deaf, blind, romance languages, Arabic languages, Asian languages, computer languages, etc...], eliminating the need for translations? Who is the leader in information technology at the moment (my guess is China!)? Is there a relationship between computational irreducibility and the uncertainty principle from Quantum Mechanics? Is there a formal definition of Number? Why all electrons are same? What temperature does a laser have? How does a laser work? How can galaxies retain their shape for billions of years? It would be really interesting to observe the effect of a logic-based language on the cognitive development of children. Will it be possible to tell a joke in a symbolic discourse language. Who (and what) may find it funny? You once said that when you were starting out, Feynman gave you a collection of his mathematical tricks for integration, which you didn't end up using. Have you published this? I would really really like to see his notes! View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 8] »

1 hour 24 minutes

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​How Alan Turing Cracked the Enigma code? ​Can you explain Newton second law of motion, please? Hello, how much of Science is kept secret, either classified by the military or waiting for monetization inside private research labs? How should we understand the double-slit experiment with light? If light is made of particles whose quantum wave functions interfere, producing the diffraction pattern we see? Or is light an electromagnetic wave that produces an interference pattern like any other wave phenomenon? How does this work? Why does no time pass at the speed of light? Computers were inspired in particular by Turing works, right? Ada Lovelace, a woman that was the first programmer. Where does the word compute in English come from? Why is the Von Neumann CPU architecture still dominating instead of more parallel solutions? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 7] »

59 minutes

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​How does one imagine a colour they've never seen before? ​Why does blue light prevent you from sleeping? ​What advice would you give to learn real analysis? ​What happens when you cry in space? ​Who is the most underrated scientist? ​How did the early universe manage to get mixed up enough that it is roughly the same? ​Lights shining and X-rays and crystals, diffraction of something and arrangement of atoms in crystals [fourier transform]. ​How does one see colors? ​Radio waves from the planets, when transformed into the audio spectrum, sound so very strange. Why do they sound so spooky? View Less »
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Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:
Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 6] »

1 hour 27 minutes

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​What actually happens with my computer when it crashes? ​How come that the humidity inside the cloud is 100% and right next to it is practically zero? What is the answer to that? ​What is your opinion Leonhard Euler or Albert Einstein? ​How important is money in science? ​Is there a maximum limit on temperature based on the fact that particles cannot reach or exceed the speed of light? How to choose what to work on? Any advice for someone who has just graduate college with a STEM degree and is interested in graduate school? I'm interested in molecular biology/biochemistry if relevant. What/who is Nicolas Bourbaki, and how was it created? Do you think only rich people can "do" science? View Less »
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