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: Is there a directionality to science and technology? - Has anyone sort of applied the hacker mentality to the Antikythera mechanism to figure out what else you could use it for? What kind of uses could a time-traveling von Neumann figure out? - What is the likelihood that ancient tech we've discovered had vastly different uses than what we believe? - Southeast Asia is terrible for archeology because you can make almost anything from bamboo: tens of thousands of years ago, people obviously used wood etc., but only stone remains. - What does that say going forward, with our fast-rotting bits, in contrast with stone or wood, or even paper? - Any thoughts on the ancient dodecahedra? Do you have one? - Who started research on the periodic tables? Can you discuss a bit about its development? - What motivated the advent of the fast Fourier transform algorithm? What was its creator wanting to solve? - How advanced did analog computers get before we moved to digital computers? Was there any debate on whether we shouldn't move to digital at the time? - Why did modern formal logic take so long to develop historically, compared to other branches of mathematics or physical sciences? What explains the delay until the mid-nineteenth century? - Is there any knowledge in physics today that has been influenced by ancient texts like the Vedas etc.?

History of Science & Technology Q&A (April 3, 2024)