History of Science and Technology Q&A (September 22, 2021)

Stephen Wolfram hosts a live and unscripted Ask Me Anything about the history of science and technology for all ages.

Outline of Q&A
0:00 Stream starts
3:55 Stephen begins the stream
4:52 Stephen, why are keyboards the default computer interface?
15:28 Why didn't someone invent the printing press earlier? It seems to have been quite financially valuable. Was it an engineering problem or a lack of entrepreneurship?
40:35 In your opinion if Physics didn't work out for Professor Feynman would he have been able to make it as a stand up Comedian
47:07 In the past or currently, how much 'science' and technology is published or publicly available... is the most 'advanced'/ useful science and tech in the published literature/ patents? Are there branches of secret science? Yes or No, are you personally or do you know a group sitting on tech that is not public facing?
53:36 Why is Turing's machine model today so dominant compared to the equivalent lambda calculus?
1:13:23 Would love to read an essay just about the printing of the NKS book. This is a wild saga.
1:13:53 ​Is it possible to identify the moment in history when scientific investigation as we know it today broke away from the study of philosophy?
1:20:25 [ when do the viewers get to hear more about the answer to the why there's something rather than nothing? ]
1:20:48 Why do you think certain cultures have had such a disproportional success in science discovery & business?

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[kirsty_iso]

Where’s this post about something rather than nothing, anyone know? Will go look now, just in case I don’t find, thanks in advance to any helpful persons out there

[ripple-travel-log]

There were printing for thousands years. But for lots of languages eg, Chinese, it can not be typed as Latin language even today. The input method used for those language are kind of like wolfram alpha, one provide pronounce and context, computer make a guess, user choose from a list of tens or hundreds of candidate.

[kirsty_iso]

Fascinating. Thank you very much.
My natural inquisition and Lex Fridman’s podcast brought you and your work to my attention

[abdulahhi]

24:09 - 24:40 meme potential, hopefully professor is okay.