History of Science and Technology Q&A (June 2, 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: 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?