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

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

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.