The Stephen Wolfram Podcast

Latest Episodes:

What We've Learned from NKS Chapter 4: Systems Based on Numbers Mar 29, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of "What We've Learned from NKS", Stephen Wolfram is counting down to the 20th anniversary of A New Kind of Science with a chapter retrospective in an ongoing livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/12aAqLklA

Stephen Wolfram Q&A, For Kids (and others) [April 23, 2021] Mar 25, 2022

Show notes

Stephen Wolfram answers general questions from his viewers about science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Questions include: If there's a way to create climate change, that must mean there's a way to reverse it? - Feel like the greenhouse effect was based of Venus's greenhouse effect. - Carbon capture research is 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 we may 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 I mean you don't know if more plankton is good for carbon dioxide situation, but maybe it may make something worse too - Think how lucky human beings are - Do you think there are life forms out there where their 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.

What We've Learned from NKS Chapter 3: The World of Simple Programs Mar 22, 2022

Show notes

History of Science and Technology Q&A (April 21, 2021) Mar 18, 2022

Show notes

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the history of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Questions include: Stephen begins the stream - Hi Stephen. Is there some particular scientific discovery that was "forgotten" and later rediscovered by someone else, whose importance you would have liked to be recognized the first time? - How did theory of computational complexity emerge and is there research in that field that you find particularly promising? - Has the Voynich manuscript ever been decoded? - Does a proof not exist to show that NP cannot be done in P, is that the way to solve the P vs NP problem assuming if P is a subset of NP? - Could a computer randomly generate and test all algorithms from a hypergraph of all possible parse tree branches of the axioms similar to the physics project? - Have you done any work with VR? - A cool VR website would a digital Louvre where you enter and walk around looking at NFTs (for those into NFTs) and other type of exhibits

What We've Learned from NKS Chapter 2: The Crucial Experiment Mar 15, 2022

Show notes

Stephen Wolfram Q&A, For Kids (and others) [April 16, 2021] Mar 11, 2022

Show notes

Stephen Wolfram answers general questions from his viewers about science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series.

Questions include: What are some of the NKS implications for medicine? - What's the minimum amount of DNA pairs that is not "obviously basic" and could perform universal computation? Would this be the lower bound for some heuristic of complexity of life? - Is there any fundamental computational boundary to a super-intelligent AI doctor capable of connecting all the medical specialties? - Why are we are not prioritizing research in longevity? - What makes HeLa cells "immortal" and how common are they in humans? Or was Henrietta the only person ever to have "immortal" cells? Do other species have cells like HeLa cells? - Why can't we reproduce cell membranes? Aren't they made up of proteins? - How do you organize/prepare for a talk? - How many hours should a scientist work per day? - Why isn't nuclear power used more and is there a way to make it smaller and safer so that it can be used like portable power generators? - What do you feel is the place of philosophy in modern science?

See the full Q&A video playlist: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

What We've Learned from NKS Chapter 1: The Foundations of a New Kind of Science Mar 08, 2022

Show notes

Stephen Wolfram Q&A, For Kids (and others) [April 9, 2021] Mar 04, 2022

Show notes

Stephen Wolfram answers general questions from his viewers about science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series. See the full Q&A video playlist: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Questions include: Does Wolfram believe in supersymmetry? - Do the particles mass vary or are they exactly the same all the time? - Gravitational mass always the same in the history of the universe? Is the inertia mass always the same, how does that work? - What is category theory? - Is it possible to make a lens/ camera for WiFi? What would differ from a regular CMOS digital camera. Can there be a 'pinhole' WiFi camera? - What would happen if you live streamed a video from a vessel that is going near the speed of light? Would it be slowed down? - Whats up with the muons discovered?

History of Science and Technology Q&A for Kids and Others (April 7, 2021) Feb 25, 2022

Show notes

Questions include: History of Lisp? - What was ctrl+enter used for in Mathematica before Wolfram|Alpha? Were you saving that the whole time for such an important purpose? - Its crazy to think that the history of computing has less than 100 years - I'm guessing the first ASCII table was only 8 bit? or maybe even that was luxurious - Have you used Forth? What do you think about stack based programming languages? - What about the history of void/zero throughout science? - What about for debts and stuff like that? - Which pieces of v1 did you mostly code yourself vs other areas, who else worked on v1 team? - How did you develop code at that time, given there was no cvs/git? Did you send mail with the updated code? - She almost discovered Benford's law (too many nines?)

Stephen Wolfram Q&A, For Kids (and others) [April 2, 2021] Feb 17, 2022

Show notes

Stephen Wolfram answers general questions from his viewers about science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Questions include: What is beta decay? - I'm confused about the mass of quarks inside of protons/neutrons, somewhere I saw numbers of only a few electrons and the rest is binding energy? - Do you think you'll be able to wirelessly "charge" your house in your lifetime? [like Tesla's wireless electricity experiment but practical] - Didn't Tesla invent wireless electricity? - Does solar count as wireless charging - Can human electromagnetic field interfere with electricity? - What is something you have recently changed your perspective or opinion about? - "I've answered why there is something instead of nothing, tune in next week"

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

The Stephen Wolfram Podcast

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected