History of Science and Technology Q&A (June 2, 2021)

The Stephen Wolfram Podcast

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

Questions include: What appeared first in math, complex numbers or vectors? What is the relation between them? Would the square root of negatives be a problem if equations were developed with vectors instead of regular numbers? - ​Hi Wolfram. Can you tell a bit about the history of Real Variables, the Rational Numbers and why analysis was so important. Why not stick to integers. Why Cantor and Dedekind was so important. Thanks - What's the largest number you've ever used in a computation? Have you used anything bigger than Graham's number or Rayo's number? - moving from roman numerals to the numbers we use today helped merchants in those days, right? I believe that's what I read. - Was Tau used befor Pi? - ​Did Feynman overestimate Fredkin? Have the string theorists underestimated Fredkin? - ​Did you work much with Murray Gell-Mann? Any shareable stories? -What is your opinion on the resurgence of UFO's?