
The Stephen Wolfram Podcast
Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha and the Wolfram Language; the author of A New Kind of Science; and the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research. Over the course of nearly four decades, he has been a pioneer in the development and application of computational thinking—and has been responsible for many discoveries, inventions and innovations in science, technology and business.
On his podcast, Stephen discusses topics ranging from the history of science to the future of civilization and ethics of AI.
Latest episodes

Feb 11, 2022 • 1h 23min
Business & Innovation Q&A for Young Entrepreneurs & Others (March 31, 2021)
Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business and innovation as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qa
Questions include: Tell us about your failures as an entrepreneur and what you learnt from them? - What is your opinion about software patents? - How many hours did you work in academia compared when you went to industry? - How can young people, like my niece obsessed with Fusion Rockets, follow their dreams? - How much should one be projected in the future, rather than staying focused on the present? - Why was Steve Jobs so successful? Was he a good engineer or a good seller? Or a good designer? - What is more important: focus or a good idea? - How quickly did you get help with Biz Admin, accounting and such? - How much of the operations of the biz are you able to automate with functions in WL, are there special functions for this unique purpose? - What is your success/failure ratio for ideas/projects you've started, that haven't quite worked out? - How much do you think that the title of your degree affects what projects you will be able to work on? Do you think the label traps you in one field or type of job? - Have you ever thought about talking on the Indie Hackers podcast? They showcase self-funded businesses - In what category am I? is 39 considered young, or am i in the "Others" category? Thousands of ideas I have, so thousands things to do, but how to prioritize? That I don't care about the money when doing something interesting and working on a project, is that a good idea?

Feb 4, 2022 • 1h 1min
Stephen Wolfram Q&A, For Kids (and others) [March 26, 2021]
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 are the biggest differences you notice about how physicists think vs. how mathematicians think? - A typical text file is a few KB, a typical audio file is a few MB, a typical video file is a few GB. What would a typical file size be for smell, taste and touch? Is there a reason why a quantitative change leads to a qualitative change? - Do you think there is a market for small rockets in Europe? - Would those LEO satellites block out sunlight? - If we keep getting more precision with atomic clocks, can we use a set of well placed atomic clocks to use gravity's effects on time to create a 3D map of some region of space (say to spy in a room, or see into the ground) to make out things with a centimeter feature?

Jan 28, 2022 • 1h 24min
History of Science and Technology Q&A for Kids and Others (March 24, 2021)
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: What is the history of black holes discovery? - Is gravitoelectromagnetism sufficient to get black holes with event horizon or do you need the full GR framework to get them? - Ernst Mach has a great book on history of mechanics (reading at the moment). The whole development of General relativity is very German until like Hawking and Chandrasekhar. Did you ever meet Stephen Hawking or Chandrasekhar? - Is there an instance or phenomenon where an instrument uses a theory to test or advance that theory... is there a something like Godels incompleteness theory that applies to the instruments in physics? - What is the history of UFO observations? - There was a new physics announcement from CERN this week. something about a new kind of force. did you catch it Stephen? "The LHCb results strengthen hints of a violation of lepton flavour universality"

Jan 14, 2022 • 2h 33min
A conversation between Mario Carneiro, Norman Megill and Stephen Wolfram (August 18, 2021)
Stephen Wolfram plays the role of Salonnière in this new, on-going series of intellectual explorations with special guests, this time specifically with Mario Carneiro and Norman Megill. Watch all of the conversations here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-conversations

Dec 30, 2021 • 1h 40min
A conversation between Terry Sejnowski and Stephen Wolfram (August 12, 2021) Part 2
Stephen Wolfram plays the role of Salonnière in this new, on-going series of intellectual explorations with special guests, this time specifically with Terry Sejnowski. Part 2 (of 2)
Watch all of the conversations here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-conversations

Dec 30, 2021 • 1h 35min
A conversation between Terry Sejnowski and Stephen Wolfram (August 12, 2021) Part 1
Stephen Wolfram plays the role of Salonnière in this new, on-going series of intellectual explorations with special guests, this time specifically with Terry Sejnowski. Part 1 (of 2 parts).
Watch all of the conversations here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-conversations

Dec 22, 2021 • 2h 25min
A conversation between Jan Ambjorn and Stephen Wolfram (August 5, 2021)
Stephen Wolfram plays the role of Salonnière in this new, on-going series of intellectual explorations with special guests, this time specifically with Jan Ambjorn. Watch all of the conversations here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-conversations

Dec 17, 2021 • 1h 53min
A conversation between Andy Strominger and Stephen Wolfram (June 26 2021)
Stephen Wolfram plays the role of Salonnière in this new, on-going series of intellectual explorations with special guests, this time specifically with Andy Strominger. Watch all of the conversations here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-conversations

Dec 10, 2021 • 2h 34min
A conversation between Fred Meinberg and Stephen Wolfram (July 4, 2021)
Stephen Wolfram plays the role of Salonnière in this new, on-going series of intellectual explorations with special guests, this time specifically with Fred Meinberg. Watch all of the conversations here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-conversations

Dec 1, 2021 • 1h 34min
A conversation between Gregory Chaitin and Stephen Wolfram (July 5, 2021)
Stephen Wolfram plays the role of Salonnière in this new, on-going series of intellectual explorations with special guests, this time specifically with Gregory Chaitin. Watch all of the conversations here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-conversations