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The Stephen Wolfram Podcast

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and others) [April 8, 2022]

Feb 17, 2023
01:18:44

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: How was it possible for civilizations across the world to develop pyramids independently (Egypt and Mayans/Aztecs)? Is there any scientific significance to this? - Does the double-helix shape in DNA show up anywhere else in nature? ​- Are there any examples of logical gates being built out of chemical reactions? What breakthroughs are needed to achieve this? - How many gates are needed for a programming language like C? - Is it necessary to have supercomputers to do meaningful biomolecule-level simulations? - What life forms have arbitrary differences between individuals and what life forms have meaningfully "unique" individuals? - Are Darwin's survival of the fittest, evolution and machine learning all basically the same thing? If not, how do they differ? ​- Can you please say something about the formation of buckyballs? - How are gemstones formed and how can we model all gem features? Colors, textures, asterism, anisotropy, everything? What do you know? - In quartz, I also notice imperfections like streaks; seems to be the molecular analog to cellular automata.

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