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 113] »

1 hour 8 minutes

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Is color discrete or continuous? Why does purple look like violet when it is made of red and blue, which are on opposite ends of the spectrum? Would the spectrum "repeat" itself if we could "see" more of the spectrum? Apparently, there are male folk that can have four visual receptors as well—it's just rare. Can you talk a bit about astronomy? I just got an eight-inch Dobsonian telescope. What should I look at first? Any tips? It's my first telescope, so I'm very excited. Is it possible to discover something unique? Colors are continuous; their perception is discrete. Similar to adding novelty to car lights to cause high contrast, we focus on points; looking there hurts us less. A dark-bright mess hurts peripherals. What causes the northern lights? View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 112] »

1 hour 24 minutes

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Are there nuclear reactions going on inside our bodies? Do you think we'll ever be able to replace damaged brain parts with computational parts as another form of prosthesis? What ethical implications will become relevant when we combine machine learning and brain sensors/effectors? Suppose a rule creates a memory in our brain. Then it could be an irreducible problem to make a true brain interface for any individual that could interpret a memory or preexisting concept. Truly a fascinating subject. Assuming we are able to completely understand the human brain, one could probably make a complete copy—basically, we could "fork" one brain into multiple copies! Do you think neurons do their signal processing based mostly on discrete states or the temporal difference between states? Even though all brains are different, don't they all "implement" the same underlying ideas? Doesn't this point to some Platonic realm of reality? One of the issues with being able to read and decode a memory is that someone will have the ability to write artificial memories into a brain. It's somewhat scary to think that could happen one day, but it could also be used for good. What about a Turing test, but for memories—like in Inception? Perhaps the only difference between dreams and reality is just a matter of degree? Perhaps it just depends on its logical coherence? Once the logical coherence is larger than what the brain can be aware of, it is considered "real." We've co-evolved with our environment so it should be coherent to us, but if we inject things into our environment that we haven't co-evolved with or evolved in, we get confused. View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 111] »

1 hour 4 minutes

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Are we close to making face recognition a ubiquitous replacement for passwords in electronic systems that require a login, negating the need to remember and constantly change multiple passwords? Can you describe the correlations among qubits, how they differ from ordinary bits and the potential advantage of them? So perhaps a conscious observer is in fact the result of the underlying physical system building a model that averages out all the parallel threads into a coherent story? What I don't really understand is destructive interference between threads of history. I understand how probabilities can add, but how can they interfere destructively? Could our brains be a quantum computer? It is, of a sort! A distinctive feature is it being inside your body and firing neurons in 3D spatial patterns. What Wolfram Language functions would be most improved if they could utilize 20 million logical qubits on a quantum computer? View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 110] »

1 hour 34 minutes

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There was a study where they saw helices in superconducting materials. What properties make helices common in nature, from DNA to whirlpools to EMR? Can you tell us why electrons in the atoms of the Sun do not burn due to the heat? How does superconducting magnet levitation work? Fermions and bosons... Are hadrons the intersection between them? Is there much use for superconductivity in space where the temp is already close to 0 K? Especially in places without an insulating atmosphere around, superconductors should be a serious option. Much easier to dissipate heat! Aren't there Japanese maglev trains on which there are cooling systems? I believe these flux tubes also show up in gravity, leading to dark matter and dark energy effects. What do you think has the most potential for changing the energy crisis, and what field do you think we need to focus on to get there? As long as the nuke plant isn't dual-use for producing plutonium, then I think it's safe. Thermovoltaic cells are a new thing that seem interesting for the efficiency of steam turbines. View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 109] »

1 hour 23 minutes

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Does gravity's strength cause a fundamental limit for the size a planet? What about a star? What about a black hole? What about a galaxy? What about the universe? Internal gas pressure and gravity are two main forces for star formation from nebulas. What was the pressure of the early universe vs. today? Just as a thought experiment. Can one stretch a vacuum beyond a "breaking point" similar to how matter can be compressed beyond a "breaking point" that leads to black holes? In both quantum field theory and general relativity, the zero-point energy seems to be arbitrary: you can add a constant to the equations and it will still be a valid solution. But in general relativity there seems to be a notion of absolute energy because of its gravitational effects. This zero point seems to be associated with flat space. Why is flat space non-gravitational, i.e. why is flat space the lowest possible energy state? Any ideas about "hacking nature" to gain powers (get infinite energy, travel faster than light, etc.). Do you think all these are possible at all? Can we really "hack" or "alter" the rules of nature? You can travel faster than light if the space between you and your destination changes; this happens quite frequently as the universe expands, and it's why we get measurements faster than the speed of light in space. It's just a fabrication. This brings up a related question. You cannot distinguish the geometry of empty space from that which has matter that is uniformly distributed. So it is perhaps uniformity that determines the geometry (without dark energy). But this assumes matter can be spread out like a fluid, instead of being discrete. So perhaps flat space is indeed the lowest-energy state. Uniform matter cannot exist because of the discreteness of matter, which leads inevitably to inhomogeneities. It's almost like you need to solve the puzzle of constructing the space you want to travel through before you can travel through it. Why is the refractive index for x-rays into matter smaller than 1? Does that mean that the speed of light for x-rays is faster in matter than in a vacuum? View Less »

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others:

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and Others) [Episode 108] »

1 hour 14 minutes

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How does sand form near the sea? Is grammar invented or discovered? I believe there exists a 13-letter language from a Pacific island. Do you think a 10-letter language would be useful since every word would also be a base-10 number? How can a natural programming language replace older concrete programming languages? Would it be fuzzy or like a predictor language, since natural language can often be interpreted differently? What are your thoughts on languages from the perspective of category theory? It seems like category theory encompasses all of math. What limitations does Wolfram|Alpha currently have? What methods are you exploring to address those limitations? View Less »

Stephen Wolfram Livestreams

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids & Others (155 videos)