Quanta Magazine
Quanta Magazine

Quanta Magazine

9 Seasons 180 Episodes ⭐ 0.0 Documentary Animation

Explore mind-bending developments in basic science and math research. Quanta Magazine is an award-winning, editorially independent magazine published by the Simons Foundation.

Explore mind-bending developments in basic science and math research. Quanta Magazine is an award-winning, editorially independent magazine published by the Simons Foundation.

Seasons & Episodes

EP 1

What Happens if You Fall Into a Black Hole?

David Kaplan explores one of the biggest mysteries in physics: the apparent contradiction between general relativity and

EP 2

Freeman Dyson: A ‘Rebel’ Without a Ph.D.

A wide-ranging interview with the legendary mathematical physicist Freeman Dyson in which he discusses his work with Ric

EP 3

Artur Avila: A Brazilian Wunderkind Who Calms Chaos

A video profile of the mathematician Artur Avila, whose solutions to ubiquitous problems in chaos theory have earned him

EP 4

Manjul Bhargava: The Musical, Magical Number Theorist

A video profile of the 2014 Fields medalist Manjul Bhargava, whose search for artistic truth and beauty has led to some

EP 5

Where Did the Universe Come From?

Where did the universe come from? David Kaplan explores the leading cosmological explanation with the help of a baking m

EP 6

Yitang Zhang: An Unlikely Math Star Rises

The opening scene from George Csicsery’s film "Counting From Infinity," about Yitang Zhang, a previously unknown mathe

EP 7

Martin Hairer: In Noisy Equations, One Who Heard Music

EP 8

Maryam Mirzakhani: A Tenacious Explorer of Abstract Surfaces

A video profile of the 2014 Fields medalist Maryam Mirzakhani, whose monumental work draws deep connections between topo

EP 9

Subhash Khot: A Grand Vision for the Impossible

A video profile of the 2014 Nevanlinna Prize winner Subhash Khot, whose bold conjecture is helping mathematicians explor

EP 10

Alan Guth: How Many Two-Headed Cows in a Multiverse?

In an infinitely branching multiverse, says MIT cosmologist Alan Guth, “there are an infinite number of one-headed cow

EP 11

Hiranya Peiris: How to Test If We Live in a Multiverse

University College London physicist Hiranya Peiris explains the seemingly impossible -- how the multiverse can be experi

EP 12

How Did Life Begin on Earth?

In this 2-minute video, David Kaplan explores the leading theories for the origin of life on our planet.

EP 13

Fly-Vac: Groundhog Day for Fruit Flies

Benjamin de Bivort’s lab at Harvard University developed a device called the fly-vac to study individual behavior. Upo

EP 14

Why Do Flies Walk This Way?

In a device in Benjamin de Bivort’s lab at Harvard University, a fly wanders through a tiny Y-shaped maze, choosing at

EP 15

How Symmetry Shapes Nature’s Laws

In this 2-minute video, David Kaplan explains how the search for hidden symmetries leads to discoveries like the Higgs b

EP 16

James Bullock: The Case for Complex Dark Matter

James Bullock, a physicist at the University of California, Irvine, explains why dark matter might be more complicated t

EP 17

Nancy Moran: An Explorer of Life’s Deepest Partnerships

Nancy Moran, a biologist at the University of Texas at Austin, explains how colony collapse disorder led her to study th

EP 18

Nima Arkani-Hamed's Visions of Future Physics

Nima Arkani-Hamed, a physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study, makes his "big-picture" case for building a 100-TeV

EP 19

What Is a Species?

David Kaplan explains why a simple definition of 'species' is hard to come by in our fifth In Theory video.

EP 20

Gabriela González: Searching the Sky for the Wobbles of Gravity

Gabriela González explains how to measure black-hole collisions using gravitational waves.

EP 21

Joan Strassmann: The Woman Who Stared at Wasps

Joan Strassmann explains the benefits of studying social amoebas.

EP 22

Christoph Adami: The Information Theory of Life

Christoph Adami explains how information theory can explain the persistence of life.

EP 23

Richard Dawid: Why Trust a Theory?

Richard Dawid discusses the fine line between science and speculation.

EP 1

Leslie Valiant: Searching for the Algorithms Underlying Life

Leslie Valiant explains the term "ecorithm."

EP 2

Are We Alone in the Universe?

David Kaplan explores the best ways to search for alien life on distant planets.

EP 3

Michael Atiyah's Imaginative State of Mind

Michael Atiyah discusses beauty in mathematics.

EP 4

David Deamer: How We’re Studying the Origins of Life

David Deamer explains how his laboratory mimics the extreme conditions found on volcanoes in the early Earth.

EP 5

Is That 'Bump' a New Particle?

David Kaplan explains how a curious signal in the Large Hadron Collider's latest data could upset the Standard Model of

EP 6

Tiny Tests Seek the Universe's Big Mysteries

David Moore explains why we might expect to find strange things when we study gravity at small scales.

EP 7

David Moore: Tabletop Physics

Stanford University physicist David Moore explains how his team’s tabletop experiment uses lasers and tiny glass spher

EP 8

Janna Levin on Science and Culture

Janna Levin talks about her roles as scientific director at a “center for art and innovation” in Brooklyn and as a p

EP 9

Ken Ono: A Life Inspired by an Unexpected Genius

Ken Ono explains how Ramanujan has served as his “guardian angel” throughout his life and career.

EP 10

Suchitra Sebastian: An Explorer of Quantum Borderlands

Suchitra Sebastian talks about how extreme conditions can create unexpected quantum behavior.

EP 11

How Does Life Come From Randomness?

David Kaplan explains how the law of increasing entropy could drive random bits of matter into the stable, orderly struc

EP 12

Miranda Cheng: A Moonshine Master Toys with String Theory

Miranda Cheng explains what umbral moonshine is and how it might illuminate string theory.

EP 13

Tracy Slatyer: A Seeker of Dark Matter’s Hidden Light

Tracy Slatyer explains why she’s not disappointed when a mysterious cosmic signal turns out to be something other than

EP 14

Peter and Rosemary Grant

Peter and Rosemary Grant explain how our understanding of evolution has changed in their lifetimes.

EP 15

Pencils Down: The Art of Teaching Math and Science

What can we learn from the best teachers on the front lines? To shine a spotlight on this linchpin of our education syst

EP 16

Pencils Down: Channa Comer of Baychester Middle School

Channa Comer teaches 6th-grade science. She focuses on engagement so kids will want to keep learning.

EP 17

Pencils Down: Mike Zitolo of School of the Future

Michael Zitolo is turning the way science is approached in the classroom upside down.

EP 18

Pencils Down: Soni Midha of East Side Community High School

In school or in life, Soni Midha wants her math students to be able to prove why something is correct.

EP 19

Pencils Down: Aaron Mathieu of Acton-Boxborough Regional High School

Students need a chance to fail at science to learn about its process, says Aaron Mathieu.

EP 20

Pencils Down: Channa Comer Teaching About Scientific Controls

What's a control? Channa Comer challenges her students to explain and work things out for themselves.

EP 21

Helen Quinn: A Wormhole Between Physics and Education

A Wormhole Between Physics and Education

EP 22

Michael Costanzo: Giant Genetic Map Reveals Life’s Hidden Links

Michael Costanzo, a biologist at the University of Toronto and a lead author on the new study, explains why it’s impor

EP 23

Richard Lenski: A Conductor of Evolution’s Subtle Symphony

Richard Lenski discusses how he has been surprised by evolution.

EP 24

Cynthia Dwork: How to Force Our Machines to Play Fair

Cynthia Dwork explains how to conduct a survey that asks people if they do embarrassing — or even illicit — things.

EP 25

Erik Verlinde: The Case Against Dark Matter

Erik Verlinde describes how emergent gravity and dark energy can explain away dark matter.

EP 26

Janet Conrad: On a Hunt for a Ghost of a Particle

Janet Conrad explains how sterile neutrinos might help physicists move past the Standard Model.

EP 27

Elena Aprile: In the Deep, a Drive to Find Dark Matter

Elena Aprile explains how she hunts for dark matter in the world’s largest underground laboratory.

EP 1

Marcus Feldman: In Search of Actions That Alter Evolution

Marcus Feldman explains how he models the effects of a cultural preference — in this case, a preference for sons over

EP 2

Francis Su: Math and the Good Life

Francis Su explains how mathematics can help a person to live well.

EP 3

Francis Su: Math Is for Everybody

Francis Su discusses how the community of mathematicians tends to exclude certain people.

EP 4

Sylvia Serfaty: In Mathematics, ‘You Cannot Be Lied To’

Sylvia Serfaty explains why you don’t have to be a genius to become a mathematician.

EP 5

Sharon Glotzer: ‘Digital Alchemist’ Seeks Rules of Emergence

Sharon Glotzer explains how emergence, entropy and order can all fit together.

EP 6

John Novembre: A Map of Human History, Hidden in DNA

John Novembre explains how he uses genomic data to map human history.

EP 7

Tim Maudlin: A Defense of the Reality of Time

A Defense of the Reality of Time

EP 8

Journey to the Birth of the Solar System 360 VR

Join David Kaplan on a virtual-reality tour showing how the sun, the Earth and the other planets came to be.

EP 9

Purvesh Khatri: More Data — the Dirtier the Better

Khatri learned that by working with 'messy' clinical data sets, he could find genes that the human body expresses in res

EP 10

Jessica Flack: How Nature Solves Problems Through Computation

Jessica Flack describes the special challenges of applying collective computation to the understanding of complex biolog

EP 11

Jay Pasachoff: Eclipse Hunter Reveals the Science That Can Only Be Done in the Dark

Jay Pasachoff explains what scientists can learn during a total solar eclipse.

EP 12

How Andrea Ghez Found a Supermassive Black Hole

The UCLA astrophysicist explains how tracking the movement of stars revealed the existence of a supermassive black hole

EP 13

Svitlana Mayboroda: Taming Rogue Waves

Svitlana Mayboroda describes how the landscape function helps solve the mystery of wave localization.

EP 14

Neil Johnson: A Physicist Who Models ISIS and the Alt-Right

Neil Johnson on the physics of collective human behavior.

EP 15

Nigel Goldenfeld: Seeing Emergent Physics Behind Evolution

Nigel Goldenfeld explains how condensed matter physics provides insights into the collective state of early life on Eart

EP 16

Rebecca Goldin: Why Math Is the Best Way to Make Sense of the World

Rebecca Goldin explains why quantitative literacy is so important.

EP 17

Michael Assis: Atomic Origami

Michael Assis demonstrates how defects can be used to tune the properties of Miura-ori origami.

EP 18

Federico Ardila: A Mathematician Who Dances to the Joys and Sorrows of Discovery

A Mathematician Who Dances to the Joys and Sorrows of Discovery

EP 19

Minhyong Kim: Connecting Number Theory to Physics

Minhyong Kim wanted to make sure he had concrete results in number theory before he admitted that his ideas were inspire

EP 20

Corina Tarnita: First Understand Nature’s Rules

Corina Tarnita argues that to fully appreciate nature, you must first understand its rules.

EP 1

Richard Schwartz: In Praise of Simple Problems

Mathematician Richard Schwartz talks about why he's attracted to the hidden depths of simple problems.

EP 2

Ed Boyden on the Promise of Expansion Microscopy

Ed Boyden of MIT’s Media Lab, the inventor of expansion microscopy, explains how the technique could illuminate deep m

EP 3

Erich Jarvis on Theories About the Origin of Vocal Learning

Neuroscientist Erich Jarvis discusses how the brain circuitry for vocal learning in songbirds and humans evolved from sy

EP 4

Daniel Goldman and His Smart Robots

Goldman explains how “smarticles” work together to demonstrate collective behavior.

EP 5

Barbara Engelhardt on How to Improve Statistical Analyses of Genomes

Barbara Engelhardt, a computer scientist at Princeton University, explains why traditional machine-learning techniques h

EP 6

Günter Ziegler Seeks God’s Perfect Math Proofs

Günter Ziegler describes one of the most famous and beautiful proofs in "Proofs From THE BOOK," a book he co-authored w

EP 7

Donald Richards: A Revealer of Secrets in the Data of Life and the Universe

Donald Richards discusses the statistical rule-of-thumb he wishes everyone knew.

EP 8

Michela Massimi: Defending the Philosophy of Science

Michela Massimi argues that the philosophy of science doesn’t have to be useful to scientists for it to be useful to h

EP 9

Lisa Manning on the Dynamics of Glasses and Embryos

Lisa Manning, a physicist at Syracuse University, describes how the physics of glassy materials helps to explain how som

EP 10

Carina Curto on How Physicists Can Think About Neuroscience

Carina Curto, a mathematician at Pennsylvania State University, explains how her background in theoretical physics helps

EP 11

Jessica Whited on Limb Regeneration and the Axolotl Genome

Jessica Whited is a biologist who studies limb regeneration at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital

EP 12

Cohl Furey on the Octonions and Particle Physics

Cohl Furey explains what octonions are and what they might have to do with particle physics.

EP 13

Alessio Figalli: A Traveler Who Finds Stability in the Natural World

The mathematician Alessio Figalli is rarely in one place for very long. But his work has established the stability of ev

EP 14

Caucher Birkar: An Innovator Who Brings Order to an Infinitude of Equations

Birkar discusses the need for originality in mathematics and in life.

EP 15

Akshay Venkatesh: A Number Theorist Who Bridges Math and Time

Akshay Venkatesh on his mathematical working style, which took him many years to discover.

EP 16

Constantinos Daskalakis: A Poet of Computation Who Uncovers Distant Truths

Constantinos Daskalakis on why he studies the interface between theoretical computer science and human behavior.

EP 17

2018 Fields Medal Coverage at Quanta Magazine

Mathematicians Caucher Birkar, Alessio Figalli, Peter Scholze and Akshay Venkatesh have been awarded the Fields Medal. C

EP 18

Rosaly Lopes on Volcanoes Throughout the Solar System

Rosaly Lopes explains why it’s worth exploring the huge variety of volcanoes on other worlds.

EP 19

Tomas Bohr on Performing the Double-Slit Experiment with Bouncing Droplets

Tomas Bohr explains the significance of the double-slit experiment in exposing the weirdness of the quantum world.

EP 20

Renee Reijo Pera on the Importance of Timing in Embryo Development

Stem cell researcher Renee Reijo Pera of Montana State University explains how the timing of developmental events in the

EP 21

Mario Jurić on How Astronomy Is Changing

Just as mathematics transformed physics from a philosophy into a science, data and computation are transforming science

EP 22

Valeria Pettorino on Learning About Dark Energy With the Euclid Satellite

Valeria Pettorino discusses the prospects of learning about dark energy with the Euclid satellite.

EP 23

Albert Einstein, Holograms and Quantum Gravity

In the latest campaign to reconcile Einstein’s theory of gravity with quantum mechanics, many physicists are studying

EP 24

Why Different Parts of a Coffee Mug Produce Different Pitches

The Stanford mathematician Tadashi Tokieda demonstrates one of his physics “toys”: the curious higher and lower note

EP 25

Martin Rees on the Future of Science and Humanity

The University of Cambridge astrophysicist, Astronomer Royal and popular author discusses how our society can benefit fr

EP 26

What Is Emergence?

How do extraordinarily complex emergent phenomena — like ants assembling themselves into living bridges, or tiny water

EP 1

Been Kim: A New Approach to Understanding How Machines Think

Google Brain’s Been Kim is building ways to let us interrogate the decisions made by machine learning systems.

EP 2

Carolina Araujo on Supporting Women in Mathematics

Carolina Araujo describes the effort to build a network of women mathematicians in Brazil.

EP 3

What Is Turbulence?

Physicists use the Navier-Stokes equations to describe fluid flows, taking into account viscosity, velocity, pressure an

EP 4

Priyamvada Natarajan: How Black Holes Shape Galaxies

Priyamvada Natarajan explains the role of supermassive black holes in the structure and evolution of the universe.

EP 5

Meenakshi Wadhwa on Meteorites and the Solar System

Meenakshi Wadhwa explains how meteorites illuminate the origins of Earth and the rest of the solar system.

EP 6

CRISPR Pioneer Jennifer Doudna on Its Research Promise

Jennifer Doudna, one of the coinventors of CRISPR technology, discusses how her work on bacterial defenses against virus

EP 7

Ecologist Jennifer Dunne on Humans’ Place in Food Webs

Jennifer Dunne of the Santa Fe Institute explains how reconstructions of food webs in past ecosystems help ecologists un

EP 8

Jim Gunn on Building Astronomical Instruments

The lauded astronomer Jim Gunn explains how a new spectrograph he is building will advance astronomy.

EP 9

What Is Universality?

Quanta’s In Theory video series returns with an exploration of the mysterious mathematical pattern found throughout na

EP 10

What Are Feynman Diagrams?

The brilliant physicist Richard Feynman devised a system of line drawings that simplified calculations of particle inter

EP 11

Edward O. Wilson on the Evolution of Social Behaviors

Edward O. Wilson, professor emeritus at Harvard University, is the influential naturalist and evolutionary theorist who

EP 12

Amie Wilkinson on the Mathematics of Change

The mathematician Amie Wilkinson explains how dynamics lets mathematicians explore the fundamentals of change.

EP 13

Lee Smolin on the Impossibility of Studying the Universe

Lee Smolin explores the problem of understanding the universe from the perspective of being inside the universe, as well

EP 14

Greg Johnson on A.I. That Sees Inside Cells

Greg Johnson, a computer vision researcher at the Allen Institute for Cell Science, explains how his deep learning visio

EP 15

Carlo Rubbia on the Future of Particle Physics

Carlo Rubbia explains why he thinks particle physicists should take the next step by building a “Higgs factory.”

EP 16

Iyad Rahwan: Why We Need a Science of Machine Behavior

The behavior of algorithms is so complex and surprising that we need to study them as though they were animals in the wi

EP 17

Craig Callender on the Trouble With Black Hole Thermodynamics

Craig Callender explains why the connection between black holes and thermodynamics is little more than an analogy.

EP 18

Stephanie Wehner Aims to Build a Quantum Internet

Wehner discusses the advantages of transmitting qubits rather than bits across a long-distance communication network.

EP 19

Virginia Trimble on How Astronomy Has Changed

Virginia Trimble discusses how astronomy has changed over the course of her half-century career.

EP 20

Barbara Liskov on the Future of Computer Science

Barbara Liskov addresses the challenges that confront computer science.

EP 1

Scarlett Howard on the Lessons of Teaching Bees Math

Scarlett Howard describes how and why she taught honeybees math.

EP 2

Nobel Laureate James P. Allison on the Origins of His Cancer Immunotherapy Research

James P. Allison of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center discusses what initially drew him to immunology as

EP 3

Omololu Akin-Ojo: Doing Cutting-Edge Physics in Africa

Omololu Akin-Ojo of the East African Institute for Fundamental Research discusses his plans to invigorate theoretical ph

EP 4

Ronald Rivest on Building Better Elections

Ronald Rivest of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology describes the role of computers in voting and what makes elec

EP 5

Pincelli Hull Explains What Killed Off the Dinosaurs

Evidence from the oceans decisively shows that an asteroid strike caused the last mass extinction, argues Pincelli Hull.

EP 6

Epidemiologist Tara Smith Answers Your Coronavirus Questions

Dr. Tara C. Smith is an infectious disease epidemiologist and contributing columnist for Quanta Magazine. In two recent

EP 7

Epidemiologist Tara Smith Answers Your Coronavirus Questions [Highlights]

Dr. Tara C. Smith is an infectious disease epidemiologist and contributing columnist for Quanta Magazine. In two recent

EP 8

Katie Mack Knows How It’s All Going to End

Katie Mack describes the most likely scenario for the end of the universe.

EP 9

James Maynard Solves the Hardest Easy Math Problems

James Maynard talks about why he’s obsessed with prime numbers.

EP 10

Liz MacDonald on Strange Auroras

Space weather scientist Liz MacDonald studies unique atmospheric phenomena such as the aurora called STEVE.

EP 11

Impossible Life Under the Ice—on Earth and Beyond

The microbial ecologist John Priscu of Montana State University discusses what led him to seek life beneath the barren,

EP 12

'Gravity Is the Law That Makes Everything Happen'

The theoretical physicist Claudia de Rham explains why gravity is so fundamental to our understanding of everything in t

EP 13

Emily Riehl: Mathematician, Musician, Educator

Emily Riehl talks about how higher category theory is like the viola, why she's drawn to expository writing, and the res

EP 14

The Woman Who's Rewriting Higher Category Theory

By turning higher category theory on itself, Emily Riehl hopes to make the powerful perspective more accessible to other

EP 15

Urban Traffic and Complex Systems

Carlos Gershenson, a computer scientist and complexity researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, answe

EP 16

Cracking the Puzzle of Biodiversity

MIT physicist Jeff Gore tests theories about microbe communities experimentally and finds new rules governing ecological

EP 17

The Bold Quest to Launch the Internet in Space

Vint Cerf is one of the fathers of the internet. Decades ago, he and Robert Kahn developed the architecture and protocol

EP 18

The Extraordinary Math Hidden in Everyday Life

L. Mahadevan is a professor of applied mathematics, physics, and organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard Universi

EP 19

The Cosmologist Who Dreams of Dark Matter

Cora Dvorkin studies the invisible universe. Known as dark matter, it is thought to comprise roughly 85% of all matter i

EP 20

Inside Dynamical Systems and the Mathematics of Change

Bryna Kra searches for structures using symbolic dynamics. “[I love] finding order where you didn’t know it existed,

EP 21

How to Shrink Big Data

Jelani Nelson, a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, expands the theoretical possibilities for

EP 22

The 'Male' and 'Female' Brain: New Clues in an Age-Old Question

Questions like “why do men and women act differently?” are age-old, with tangled, deeply buried answers. But that is

EP 23

2020's Biggest Breakthroughs in Physics

This year, two teams of physicists made profound progress on ideas that could bring about the next revolution in physics

EP 24

2020's Biggest Breakthroughs in Math and Computer Science

For mathematicians and computer scientists, 2020 was full of discipline-spanning discoveries and celebrations of creativ

EP 25

2020's Biggest Breakthroughs in Biology

In 2020, the study of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was undoubtedly the most urgent priority. But there were also some major brea

EP 1

The Riemann Hypothesis, Explained

The Riemann hypothesis is the most notorious unsolved problem in all of mathematics. Ever since it was first proposed by

EP 2

What Makes Physics Beautiful, According to a Nobel Prize Winner

In this new video, Wilczek reflects on his life's work and describes what he believes to be the most beautiful equations

EP 3

Meet One of NASA's Pioneering Women

In 1967, Christine Darden was added to the pool of "human computers" who wrote complex programs and tediously crunched n

EP 4

How Cosmic Dust Reveals the Secrets of the Universe

Every year, roughly 10 particles of space dust land on each square meter of Earth’s surface. Matthew Genge, a planetar

EP 5

Why COVID-19 Models Are Often Wrong

To understand what epidemiological models can tell us, it helps to first understand what they can’t. In this explainer

EP 6

This U.S. Olympiad Coach Has a Unique Approach to Math

Po-Shen Loh believes math education needs an overhaul. And he knows a thing or two about it—he's resurrected the Unite

EP 7

Why Extraterrestrial Life Might Not Be So Alien

On the website for the department of zoology of the University of Cambridge, the page for Arik Kershenbaum lists his thr

EP 8

Fighting for Equality in Computer Science and Beyond

Rediet Abebe uses the tools of theoretical computer science to understand pressing social problems — and try to fix th

EP 9

Iceland Is Mars, on Earth

Volcanoes are intimately connected with life. Scientists are using the current eruptions in Iceland to understand the po

EP 10

Plate Tectonics: The Mystery of Earth's Many Faces

Plate tectonics is the narrative arc that ties every episode in Earth’s geologic history together. Thanks to the magne

EP 11

The Theory That Could Rewrite the Laws of Physics

Chiara Marletto is trying to build a master theory — a set of ideas so fundamental that all other theories would sprin

EP 12

Black Hole Jets: One of the Biggest Mysteries in the Universe

At the heart of every galaxy lies one of the most mysterious objects in the universe: a supermassive black hole. Million

EP 13

Quantum Computers, Explained With Quantum Physics

Quantum computers aren’t the next generation of supercomputers—they’re something else entirely. Before we can even

EP 14

What’s Inside an Exoplanet

Out in the vast universe, unknown billions of strange worlds drift around other stars. Many of them are quite unlike any

EP 15

The Bridge Between Math and Quantum Field Theory

Even in an incomplete state, quantum field theory is the most successful physical theory ever discovered. Nathan Seiberg

EP 16

The Most Successful Scientific Theory Ever: The Standard Model

The Standard Model of particle physics is the most successful scientific theory of all time. It describes how everything

EP 17

How to Build Truly Intelligent AI

Melanie Mitchell, the Davis professor of complexity at the Santa Fe Institute, has worked on digital minds for decades.

EP 18

How Scientists Finally Finished the Human Genome

In 2003, the Human Genome Project announced that it had successfully sequenced the entire human genome. That wasn’t q

EP 19

The Scientific Problem of Consciousness

Anil Seth wants to understand how minds work. As a neuroscientist at the University of Sussex in England, Seth has seen

EP 20

Exoplanets: The Astronomer Looking into Alien Worlds

We know next to nothing about the other 6 billion or so Earth-like exoplanets in the galaxy. With the imminent launch of

EP 21

When Biology Meets Computer Science

Anne Carpenter, a computational biologist and senior director of the Imaging Platform of the Broad Institute of MIT and

EP 22

How NASA’s Webb Telescope Will Transform Our Place in the Universe

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is the most powerful telescope in the history of humanity, and one of the most ambitio

EP 23

2021's Breakthroughs in Neuroscience and Other Biology

A paradigm shift in how we think about the functions of the human brain. A long-awaited genetic sequence of Rafflesia ar

EP 24

2021's Biggest Breakthroughs in Physics

It was a big year. Fermilab discovered possible evidence of new physics with the muon G-2 experiment. Physicists created

EP 25

2021's Biggest Breakthroughs in Math and Computer Science

It was a big year. Researchers found a way to idealize deep neural networks using kernel machines—an important step to

EP 1

The Cosmologist Challenging Einstein

Celia Escamilla-Rivera discusses how she is using the tools of precision cosmology to hunt for a theory of gravity—in

EP 2

How Geometry Shapes Our Lives

Jordan Ellenberg, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, enjoys studying the math underlying everyday

EP 3

The Biophysics of a Brainless Animal

Trichoplax adhaerens is a species of placozoa, the simplest animals at the base of the tree of life. It doesn't have a n

EP 4

Steven Strogatz’s Secrets of Math Communication

Steven Strogatz — the acclaimed mathematician and author — hosts the new Quanta Magazine podcast "The Joy of Why." O

EP 5

The Physicist Who Travels Across Disciplines, Space and Time

A playful polymath who is prone to leaping from string theory to Proust in mid-conversation, Vijay Balasubramanian of th

EP 6

The Man Who Revolutionized Computer Science With Math

Leslie Lamport revolutionized how computers talk to each other. The Turing Award-winning computer scientist pioneered th

EP 7

Finally, a Picture of the Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole

More than three years after the release of the first-ever image of a black hole, scientists from the Event Horizon Teles

EP 8

The Biggest Project in Modern Mathematics

In a 1967 letter to the number theorist André Weil, a 30-year-old mathematician named Robert Langlands outlined strikin

EP 9

Exploring the Deep Mystery of Life's Origins

As an evolutionary biochemist at University College London, Nick Lane explores the deep mystery of how life evolved on E

EP 10

How Two Physicists Unlocked the Secrets of Two Dimensions

Condensed matter physics is the most active field of contemporary physics and has yielded some of the biggest breakthrou

EP 11

One Man's Mission to Unveil Math's Beauty

"Students haven't been taught that math is discovery," says Richard Rusczyk, founder of Art of Problem Solving. "Math is

EP 12

The High Schooler Who Solved a Prime Number Theorem

In his senior year of high school, Daniel Larsen proved a key theorem about Carmichael numbers — strange entities that

EP 13

How Physicists Created a Wormhole in a Quantum Computer

Almost a century ago, Albert Einstein realized that the equations of general relativity could produce wormholes. But it

EP 14

2022's Biggest Breakthroughs in Math

Mathematicians made major progress in 2022, solving a centuries-old geometry question called the interpolation problem,

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