History of Science & Technology Q&A (April 3, 2024)

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: Is there a directionality to science and technology?​​ - Has anyone sort of applied the hacker mentality to the Antikythera mechanism to figure out what else you could use it for? What kind of uses could a time-traveling von Neumann figure out?​​ - What is the likelihood that ancient tech we've discovered had vastly different uses than what we believe?​​ - ​​Southeast Asia is terrible for archeology because you can make almost anything from bamboo: tens of thousands of years ago, people obviously used wood etc., but only stone remains.​​ - What does that say going forward, with our fast-rotting bits, in contrast with stone or wood, or even paper? - ​​Any thoughts on the ancient dodecahedra? Do you have one?​​ - Who started research on the periodic tables? Can you discuss a bit about its development?​​ - What motivated the advent of the fast Fourier transform algorithm? What was its creator wanting to solve?​​ - ​​How advanced did analog computers get before we moved to digital computers? Was there any debate on whether we shouldn't move to digital at the time?​​ - Why did modern formal logic take so long to develop historically, compared to other branches of mathematics or physical sciences? What explains the delay until the mid-nineteenth century?​​ - Is there any knowledge in physics today that has been influenced by ancient texts like the Vedas etc.?​​