Informal History of Physics

Stephen Wolfram gives a brief history of physics from Aristotle to Newton to Einstein and beyond---including simple conceptual explanations, historical footnotes and a few ideas about the future of the field.

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[bariswheel]

What a masterpiece of a post, please continue !

[ricardoruiz]

This is the 2nd time I watch this video. On my first watch, being foreign to the sciences, I was totally lost. On my re/watch, after consuming many smaller videos on the particulars, I was able to enjoy the talk MUCH more! Thank you so much for sharing a chronological development of physics in a consumable manner! It was very helpful to my understanding!

[ronaldronald]

It is amazing that in a short time so many things are discovered and more or less understood. It is a miracle that i can lay on the couch with my laptop listening to one of the most brilliant scientist telling me all about it. We live in a somewhat troubled golden age that i wish more people could enjoy.

[cristianfcao]

It's a warm summer evening in ancient Greece...

[Lantertronics]

I'm amazed Stephen can talk for two and a half hours without breaks! (At least as far as I can tell -- I was listening and not really watching so there may be edits I didn't notice).

[dynamikeloveyou]

Thank you Stephen Wolfram for your astonishing work. I discovered you through lex fridmans podcast amd have relistened to those podcasts several times. Ive been through your and your colleagues 2018 (i think) hypergraphic analysis of euclids geometry. Dazzling!

Ive got A new kind of science at the ready on my table. I just need to do a few weeks of push ups and yoga to be able to lift it up without straining my back.

In addition to your wonderful insights two things i have appreciated in your work have been: your comment about intellectual self confidence being instrumental to your elaboration and integrarion of your own ideas toward their coherence and explanatory power. I also appreciate your genuine enthusiasm for and gifts of explanation.

Bravo and many thanks

[tripp]

This is incredible that Stephen is able to give an entire history of physics with no notes or anything. What a genius.

[katiemiaana]

Physics is such a difficult subject but I followed this because you are a very good teacher.

[superdan]

Mr Wolfram, you're the man. Please keep up the amazing work you're doing and please keep telling us about it. I just watched your presentation on "Computation and the Fundamental Theory of Physics" at the Royal Institution and I was really impressed and I would like to know everything about your project and how it is going into the future.

[essentialblend]

Stephen is bang on about the whole "what you think is true and taken for granted might be something else entirely". Your never naively think you're upside down on a globe without some series of logical demonstrations.

[Seekthetruth]

This guy got his PhD in physics when he was 21 years old!

[romancech]

Thank you so much! Please continue posting, the way you present material is very intuitive and immensely useful.

[migkillerphantom]

Hey Stephen, how important do you think it is to understand the history behind the ideas to understanding the ideas themselves? I personally find that it's much easier to understand some mathematical model or another if I understand what people were thinking at the time they came up with it.

[marcusedwards]

Absolutely loving these talks. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge and work!

[mthai]

Thank you for bringing the focus back on to history for a moment. I teach Engineering students who think they don't need to know who John Von Neumann is "because we have computers now". God help us if this continues.

[PaulFeakins]

I like the way Wolfram talks, it's very precise and clear.

[italobarbiot]

Wolfram has the most precise computation from all sapiens I computed.

[pellythirteen]

You're forgiven for almost forgetting to mention Newtons contribution before resuming 18e-century physics. Very entertaining presentation !

[markoshivapavlovic]

Happy to see your views and discuss further the physics and math with you. :)

[Gamma]

Un gran saludo desde Argentina de un humilde aspirante a entrar al instituto balseiro, cuna de Maldacena. Mis felicitaciones por su increíble aporte a la ciencia