The Stephen Wolfram Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Stephen Wolfram Q&A, For Kids (and others) [December 11, 2020] Mar 19, 2021

Show notes

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

Questions include: 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 are your comments on the recent superconductor breakthrough? Is it a breakthrough? - 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??

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

Stephen Wolfram Q&A, For Kids (and others) [December 4, 2020] Mar 12, 2021

Show notes

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

Questions include: Why do some people commonly refer the internet to the World Wide Web? Isn't The world wide web a bunch of networks or website on the internet? - Is there a philosopher who had developed a system which is close to your perspective right now? - What are your tips about writing essays? - Why does the electron and the proton have the same amount of charge? - Why can't magnetic monopoles exist? - Bearing in mind the current topic, as well as thinking about Sapir-Whorf hypothesis - do you ever think about how humans might be 'thinking' in the future... (thinking paradigms of thought related to the future) - Do I have an opinion about such and such papers? - I don't know if Stephen was asked this question during these, but let me ask: Hello Stephen, how are you? - Would you advise today's gen Z to become independent researchers rather than academics? - Do you like Turtles?

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

Stephen Wolfram Q&A, For Kids (and others) [November 27, 2020] Mar 05, 2021

Show notes

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

Questions include: Are instruction sets architectures important for simulating physical systems, and how they could change the way kids understand computers? - How much do you follow your instincts? How do you develop a good instinct, in science and in life? - What is the financial market? - Jack Dorsey is endorsing your idea of an algorithm choice by third parties, would u be an adviser for the implementation? - Since we collided particles in accelerators ... Does a proton has a surface and how does it looks like? - Do you believe pursuing both Computer Science and Actuarial Science is a good idea? - How can protons be perfectly spherical while also being composed of three quarks? - Do you have any tips on getting ahead of my class and into research?

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

Stephen Wolfram Q&A, For Kids (and others) [November 20, 2020] Feb 26, 2021

Show notes

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

Questions include: Can you explain computational irreducibility like you're telling a 6 year old? - How different is nanotechnology manufacturing different from normal manufacturing? - What is the historical relationship between chemistry and physics? Is chemistry a sub-branch of physics? - Can aging really be cured? - Isn't death a fundamental factor of evolution to more sophisticated beings? - What about the "immortal jellyfish"? - Is there anything more terrifying than living forever? - If there is ethical problems with eternal life what kind of issues would it be is it about resources and if so are our resources finite? - Will there be nanomachine that reprogram cells to prolong life or even make life go on forever? - Is infinity a semi-theological concept? Is infinity beyond counting and measuring – and therefore not fundamentally an empirical concept?

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

Stephen Wolfram Q&A, For Kids (and others) [November 13, 2020] Feb 19, 2021

Show notes

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

Is there a physical principle that governs Moore's law? Why is there so much available computation? - If F=ma, and photons have a mass of 0, how can light sails work? Do photons have some properties of having mass? - As of right now, what do you anticipate will be the outcome of the Wolfram Physics Project? What practical applications will it have? - What is more difficult for you to create things or to explain how they work to others? - Has your physics project shed any light on the protein folding problem? If you squint right, there seems to be a connection. - How does black hole merging work? - Is there any theory about what type of particles a potential black hole would be made off? - What's your experience and opinion about Alchemy and is it possible to incorporate a modernized version of it into Mathematica? - What do we know about the nature of time travel? Will time machines as depicted in science fiction stories remain fiction for the foreseeable future? - Can there be architectures that do not seem to make sense that simply have higher order of complexity not dependent on binary arithmetic circuits? That will be used in future? - I am currently in high school, what advice would you give to an aspiring mathematician?

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

Stephen Wolfram Q&A, For Kids (and others) [November 6, 2020] Feb 15, 2021

Show notes

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

Questions include: Why is that the sunspot cycle is important for shortwave radio? - What aspects of the origin of life would be interesting to investigate with current computing tools? - How does 3d printing work and what is its potential? - How do you think like a mathematician or scientist? I have read and heard that math and science take a different mental process than what we are shown at school. What skills should I be building? - Do you think we could see a day when people are taught/educated by AI and computers, either with or instead of people and what do you think of this, especially when compared to education today? - What is the difference between science and philosophy?

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

Wolfram Physics Project: Open Q&A Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2020 Feb 05, 2021

Show notes

Stephen Wolfram discusses the new Wolfram Physics Project, this time specifically for an open Q&A. See the full Wolfram Physics Project video playlist on YouTube: https://wolfr.am/youtube-wpp

Stephen Wolfram Q&A, For Kids (and others) [October 30, 2020] Jan 26, 2021

Show notes

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

Questions include: Where were you in the dot com bubble burst and your wisdom was needed? - What work did you do at Bell labs? Who did you meet? - Was it the need in telephone grid that drove the innovation of the transistor? - How many shirts do you own? - Are there any string theorists who believe that nature is finite and digital? - Great scientists typically have great students. Is it because something is transferred from a teacher to a student or because talented people try to reach outstanding supervisors? - What age do you think is the best age to start coding? and why? - Hi Dr. Wolfram, what does it mean 'correlation does not imply causation'? -
Dr. Wolfram, can you give an example what you will do with Wolfram language if you were 13 years old?

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

Stephen Wolfram Q&A, For Kids (and others) [October 23, 2020] Jan 25, 2021

Show notes

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

Questions include: I was wondering about your thoughts on Claude Shannon, information entropy, and information theory in general. I believe this field is responsible for so much technology and progress around us, but doesn't get its due praise in the mainstream. - What books / exercises are best to take me from a high school level physics / mathematics understanding to being able to make sense of the wolfram physics model? - Why is the core of the Earth as hot as the surface of the sun? Fusion or fission? Is this true of many planets/moons in our solar system? - What good and bad aspects are there to being financially successful? How did your life change when you first became a millionaire? - If you got a chance to talk to Richard Feynman, right now in 2020, and ask only one question, what would it be? - It is 'easy' to make a bot for every video game? How god ant-bot detection methods can be? - What outreach do you do for students in a similar situation as I was in, to help people succeed as I did? Any plans on increasing that outreach?

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

Stephen Wolfram Q&A, For Kids (and others) [October 16, 2020] Jan 25, 2021

Show notes

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

Questions include:
For a math/science career, what is the most useful subject to study in school excluding math/science? What was your favorite non-science class(subject) in school? - Does a charged battery weigh more than a discharged battery? - How can scientist Measure Atomic number for every element, electron mass and speed? - Is there an accessible book about the history of computation that you would recommend? - If it's true sound can be transmitted more easily in solids compared to gases, why can we hear better through air compared to through walls or glass? - Why are mirrors made with glass? Would a mirror made with a different material have different reflective properties? - What was your first computer Dr. Wolfram? - How long have you known Donald Knuth? - Golf ball have dimples that allow them to move faster. Why cars and planes don't have dimples? - When you say that in philosophy everyone can think about fundamental questions: why is that the case in philosophy but not in physics or maths? why does philosophy not have a similar rigid corpus of theory as "harder science" have?

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

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