History of Science & Technology Q&A (November 6, 2024)

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: Were there any ancient travel bloggers (or the ancient equivalent) who wrote about other places they visited? - Did ancient civilizations like Rome or Egypt actually communicate with each other? - How did they know about each other? - How influential was Babylonian science on Greek natural philosophy? - How did people know how to tell time before clocks? - Did scientists back in the day have rivals or "frenemies" like we see in movies?​​ Did ancient people have the equivalent of church bells to mark the time in cities? - Were there any ancient or medieval "tech hacks" that we'd still find useful today? - Why do you think the ancient Greeks had a fondness for abstract levels of thought? - Is there an aspect of culture that enables this? - How did people figure out that the Earth is round?

Om Podcasten

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.