Join Stephen Wolfram as he celebrates the 35th anniversary of Mathematica, originally launched on June 23, 1988!
Originally livestreamed at: / stephen_wolfram
00:00 Start stream
10:40 SW starts talking
11:09 What happened on June 23, 1988?
13:27 What was included in a V1.1 of Mathematica box?
21:23 Mac SE/30 computer running V1 of Mathematica
28:48 How to open a nb created on a Mac SE/30 on a modern Macbook?
41:49 Running a a nb created on a Mac SE/30 on a modern Macbook
43:34 A look forward and the timeless goal of Mathematica.
44:07 What are the essential primitives of computation and what led to the idea for Mathematica.
56:26 How does one make a notation for computation and the mission of Wolfram Language.
1:02:54 The nature of computational language. How Wolfram Language works with LLMs with new chat notebooks and Wolfram|Alpha.
1:06:41 Computational thinking and it's application.
1:17:33 What do you take for granted on your computer?
1:19:18 What do I need to know about the computational world?
1:22:05 The future and Computation X
1:23:30 Personal connection and use of Wolfram Language. Discussing the Physics Project and NKS.
1:35:09 If you had asked in 1988, "What would this all look like 35 years from now." How does it compare to what Mathematica is today.
1:39:26 In the early days of Mathematica (and perhaps even today), were most people used to thinking of programs procedurally? Can you talk about people's reaction to learning to do functional programming?
1:45:38 Was there any point in those 35 years where you said "OK, time to close up shop, this won't work"?
1:51:44 What went into the launch of Mathematica in 1988? Was it months/years of planning?
1:57:25 What aspect of Mathematica are you most proud of and how has it influenced your approach to problem-solving?
1:58:22 What are some updates to Mathematica that you are looking forward to or would like to see incorporated?
2:02:10 On page 498 of the original Mathematica book, it says "...Mathematica itself was written using an object-oriented extension of the C programming language". Anything interesting to say about that?
2:06:19 ​Why was the .ma extension changed to .nb?
2:09:02 I kinda miss old computers because they forced you to focus on the task at hand.
2:09:33 Will LLMs themselves carry the torch forward of making everything computational? Define their own useful symbolic expressions?
2:10:56 Have you ever, in the past 35 years, written some pen and paper mathematics... on paper?
2:12:39 What's the number one function you would like to add but seems unfeasible with the current technology?
2:15:46 What will you think Mathematica will be like in 10 years time?
2:16:18 What are some of the most unusual applications of Mathematica you have encountered?
2:27:02 How did you get the first funding to make Mathematica? Did you always know it would be successful?
2:33:27 ​Did you ever consider just working at Symbolics Inc. on Macsyma (or the like) instead of building your own tools?
2:43:07 100 years from now, how do you envision Wolfram's continued enhancements to Mathematica and other future computational languages - how will the organization continue?
2:47:16 The SE/30 was the first computer I used to run Mathematica. I had gotten it in April 1989, and had 8 Mbytes RAM. I later upped that to 20.
2:48:53 Do you see VR/AR in Mathematica's future?
2:50:05 It sounds hard to come from single computer computation to cloud like environment.
2:54:12 What are a few of the most important fundamentals of Wolfram Mathematica of which most people are unaware? What uses are there that you'd like to see better/more widely explored? Any favorite moments?
2:56:00 AI in the 70s must have been terrifying.
2:58:50 I think we'll get a pretty good AI Stephen to live on. He's left behind tens of thousands of hours of video.
2:59:56 The Stephen Bot will endure.
3:01:29 End stream
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