History of Science and Technology Q&A (June 15, 2021)

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the history of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Questions include: ​How was DNA discovered? The history behind its discovery? - ​Is there a history of musical digital instruments? Like the synth seems to me the beginning of exploration of "computational music". Maybe electronic music should be called that way.... - can you build a cellular automata for each sound font? how does one construct the CA in general to map onto functions like sine or wave forms? - Is science slowly becoming a meme, considering how strongly supported the theory has been of natural origin of COVID-19 by the so-called scientific community? It appears, a scientist's opinion is more and more becoming a product. - Question: There was, and seem to be still today, a very discriminating and political approach in the world of science when someone tried to present another or different ways of approaching something. What are your thoughts on how we can improve those "strict/closed" science groups to support a broader and more "open minded" philosophy? - Did summer school and incubator programs exist hundreds of years ago? - Do you think the relationship between the scientific community and media/business/government is fundamentally different today or pretty close to what we've seen in the (typical ebb & flow) past many decades/century?