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 134] »

1 hour 4 minutes

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If human reaction speed were faster, would that be helpful? How much faster could it be? Is the limiting factor the nerve signal relays or brain processing time? Do you find it weird that on Earth, animals with bigger brains are considered the more intelligent species, but in technology, the smarter computer chips seem to always be smaller? Could these (neuron connections) "prove" precognitions with "impossible" results from certain people? Do you think the brain can be trained (or not) like a muscle? How will brains change through Neuralink connecting to AI? I think some parts of our brains adapted to modern (laggy) typing, so we don't really perceive it anymore. By the way, they have done the same thing to brains of whales etc. and found that those whales actually have fewer neurons than humans. It's just that the size of those neurons is very big. I'd say societies/groups are our larger-scale developing "brains." Would bigger brains run into heating/cooling issues? I get the feeling we'll realize nature is so much more efficient than what we hope to do with electronics that we'll soon be relying on cells for major computation. View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 133] »

1 hour 29 minutes

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Could we be inside of a black hole? Can biological life survive? Would something trapped in the liminal space between the event horizon and "singularity" eventually be able to escape? In a black hole, does time stop? Is this a case for string theory? What are the implications of a naked black hole (one without an event horizon) on the universe? It is very interesting that the more the black hole "eats," the larger the surface gets. So what exactly is the singularity? If matter and antimatter both have positive mass, then wouldn't Hawking radiation increase the mass of a black hole? How small can a black hole be? "Micro-black holes," maybe? Do you think it will ever be possible to reproduce a black hole situation in a lab for practical research/experimentation? What is spinning in a spinning black hole? Can black holes have a charge? Can the effect of the charge propagate out of the black hole if photons cannot escape? Why are they named black holes and not after the name of the people who found/discovered this phenomenon? Could lasers be used to display an advertisement (or perhaps a clock) on the Moon? Can high-bandwidth internet connections be bounced off reflectors on the Moon? If the Moon is responsible for the tides, can the Earth be responsible for some micro-movement of moon dust? Buying an ad that burns up upon reentry sounds incredibly wasteful. Would the tea dumped into Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party have affected the underwater ecosystem? How would biologists test for the effects of caffeine on fish? Why are the elements on the Earth not more homogeneous? Why are there areas/mines abundant with certain metals? Is the heterogeneity of elements increasing or decreasing on Earth? Is this the same for other planets? Galaxies? View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 132] »

1 hour 5 minutes

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What would a bio-computer look like? Interesting to think whether John Conway's Life is a kind of life. Can you grow life from a computer program? Why are there different colors of flowers but not trees? What causes a four-leaf clover? Why are they so rare? The mantis shrimp has 12 types of cone cells in its eyes. Do you have any intuition what space all these colors occupy in the brain of this animal? Is it something 11-dimensional? There has been a lot of cool research in regards to photosynthesis recently. Anything to say about that? What's the difference between "species" and "variety"? How do you know if something is the main species or its variety? Could it be possible to disable some kind of cone cell (maybe with a paralysis drug) in our eye and thus lead someone to perceive some super-color, i.e. something that activates the other two types of cone cells while not activating the other type, in a way that is not normally physically possible? View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 131] »

1 hour 17 minutes

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Could the expansion of the universe affect biological evolution? How much does the sky weigh? How much does the Earth weigh? What would happen if gravity on Earth changed to that of the Moon? What if gravity suddenly got stronger? So a full data memory card vs. a new, empty data memory card of the same kind: will there be a slight difference in weight due to the data filled? Do insects (e.g. ants, mites, etc.)/bacteria have brains? Assuming they do, do they have emotions? Do they feel pain? If they (in the case of bacteria) don't have a brain, what governs their behaviors? How was it discovered that caffeine could energize us? Is it all living things that experience these effects, or is it exclusive to humans? If electronics have coils and the brain has coils, should we be more conscious of signals in the air? Is there a reason for the food likes and dislikes that each person experiences? Can tastebuds be tricked? View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 130] »

1 hour 24 minutes

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Is it possible to create more universe? Why does running my Waterpik interrupt Bluetooth connections? In third grade, I had an argument with a teacher. She said, "Before humans had language, they thought just like us." I argued that couldn't be true—instead, language gave way to complex thoughts. Was I right? Why do many medications have side effects? Why do we yawn? Are yawns truly contagious? Why do cats meow, why do dogs bark, why do birds chirp? Why can't AI help us to analyze animal sounds? Do photons run through antimatter? Does that make them matter? Is chemistry really just physics? Does brain size have any correlation to IQ? Well, the hardware of the brain is an ongoing process, especially in childhood. Nurture, environmental, social and natural circumstances can cause changes in brain hardware. Do bigger brains actually have more functional neurons, or are they just more spread out? Would all whales speak the same whale language? A friend had a bird that learned to imitate their microwave alarm. View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 129] »

1 hour 23 minutes

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Why is it important that the periodic table is structured as a table rather than a list of elements? Is the periodic table just the table for the current state? Since there weren't heavy atoms from the start (Big Bang), maybe in the far future everything decays and just the electrons survive. How certain are we that the Big Bang actually happened? What are the chances of the Big Bang theory being displaced in the future? What do you make of the very early galaxies seen by JWST, which seem too large to exist so early? Is it possible that the expansion of space due to dark energy could eventually be fast enough that even atoms and nuclei come apart? How is the temperature of cosmic background radiation measured? Is it just from the wavelength of the microwaves? View Less »

Stephen Wolfram Livestreams

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