History of Science and Technology Q&A (December 27, 2023)

Stephen Wolfram hosts a live and unscripted Ask Me Anything about the history of science and technology for all ages. Find the playlist of Q&A's here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa Originally livestreamed at: https://twitch.tv/stephen_wolfram If you missed the original livestream of this episode, feel free to submit a question you would like Stephen to answer in a future Q&A livestream here: https://wolfr.am/12cczmv5J 00:00 Start stream 1:05 SW starts talking 1:17 If eyeglasses were developed in Italy in the 2nd half of the 13th century, then why was the invention of the telescope delayed until 1608? 8:20 Are there possibilities of researchers purposefully misinterpreting history to support their current research? I often hear some things are "open to interpretation", but is there a case of this causing false experiments? 16:11 Same for LLMs hallucination today. 22:36 Makes me think of the "replication crisis" and the question: how many phds if we ran all of them since 1960s through an LLM would be flagged for plagiarism? 29:44 What is best for historical research? Photos? Text? artifacts? 44:18 What do you know about the history of archiving? When did archiving begin? 1:03:33 Your discussion today pinpoints how critical it is for scientists to know the history of their field of research as well as become excellent communicators of the science. One without the other leaves others not as immersed in the field, floundering to understand their ideas. 1:10:08 What has history taught us on how to deal with a science community that is misguided? 1:22:24 What does the modern history of science tell us about non academic contributors and future of this type of contributions? 1:32:45 It's not just science where new ideas need time to settle. Van Gogh famously sold only one painting during his lifetime. 1:36:48 How and why should we document science in the future when AI starts to lead progress? 1:39:16 What are the positives of reformulating history? 1:45:05 End Stream Follow us on our official social media channels. Twitter: https://twitter.com/WolframResearch/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wolframresearch/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wolframresearch/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wolfram-research/ Stephen Wolfram's Twitter: https://twitter.com/stephen_wolfram/ Contribute to the official Wolfram Community: https://community.wolfram.com/ Stay up-to-date on the latest interest at Wolfram Research through our blog: https://blog.wolfram.com/ Follow Stephen Wolfram's life, interests, and what makes him tick on his blog: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/