History of Science and Technology Q&A (August 7, 2024)

00:00 Start stream
1:18 SW starts talking
1:44 What is the history of data visualization? Was the discipline only able to flourish relatively recently with the introduction of computers, or is there a deep and rich history of people creating pictures by hand to extract visual insights from abstract data?
26:45 Nikola Tesla was building a machine for the wireless transmission of electricity. It seems like we're getting to a place where we can beam solar energy down to Earth from solar-harvesting satellites. I'm curious what Stephen's take on this is and the timeline for this research/what is needed to make it a reality.
27:58 ​​​​From your perspective, what is the importance of compression functions in computer science?
47:58 Do we know who designed written language? Or are there still missing pieces in history such that we can't properly map out the history of written work?
50:52 What is the stage of development/history around implementing cellular automata in hardware, such as quantum dot cellular automata? What large-scale, hardware-accelerated simulations would be interesting?
57:26 I'm curious about the history of eyeglasses. Why has the tech not seem to have advanced much?
1:05:09 End Stream

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[eggburtdilusia]

Dear Mr. Wolfram,
I have a question about fundamentals:
If you are attempting to reproduce reality by finding the correct rule set; shouldn't every node you create be a cloud of probability functions?
How do your "rules" for "quantum weirdness".
Thanks.

[nlysts]

Ibn al-Haytham's made bag breakthrough with on optics inthe Book of Optics (Kitāb al-Manāẓir), was written between 1011 and 1021