The Quanta Podcast
Quanta Magazine
300 episodes
Exploring the distant universe, the insides of cells, the abstractions of math, the complexity of information itself, and much more, The Quanta Podcast is a tour of the frontier between the known and the unknown. In each episode, Quanta Magazine Editor-in-Chief Samir Patel speaks with the minds behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math. Quanta specifically covers fundamental research — driven by curiosity, discovery and the overwhelming desire to know why and how. Join us every Tuesday for a stimulating conversation about the biggest ideas and the tiniest details.
More about the show
(If you've been a fan of the Quanta Science Podcast, it will continue here. You'll see those episodes marked as audio edition episodes every two weeks.)
Episodes page 1 of 6
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Malaria Parasite Caught in the Act of Breaking and Entering
To invade red blood cells, malaria parasites create a temporary molecular portal that lets them slip into the cell — and then the door disappears behind it, gone in 60 seconds. Researchers have finally detailed the…
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Audio Edition: The Quietest Mathematician Has Always Been Worth Listening To
John Pardon sees connections between different areas of math that others don’t. For that vision, he’s now been awarded a Fields Medal. The article The Quietest Mathematician Has Always Been Worth Listening To first…
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'Ghostly' Galaxies and the Mystery of Dark Matter
In 2018, using the Keck Observatory in Hawaiʻi, astronomers discovered the first known dark matter-deficient galaxy, DF2. It’s about the same size as the Milky Way, but way dimmer, with 200 times fewer stars. Since…
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How Math Brings Together Classical Chaos, Quantum Mechanics, and Fractals
The uncertainty principle tells us that the more you know about where a quantum particle is, the less you can know about how fast it’s moving, and vice versa. In 2023, graduate student Alex Cohen stunned the math world…
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Audio Edition: Sometimes Being First Means Seeing the End Before Anyone Else
Determination and effort propelled Jacob Tsimerman to the top of the math world. But now that he’s won a Fields Medal, he worries that the field is in jeopardy. The article Sometimes Being First Means Seeing the End…
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Sea Monkeys, Jupiter, and the Mystery of Turbulence
Turbulence is all around us: bumping our planes, roiling our rivers, swirling milk into our coffee. These systems quickly become extremely chaotic and complex. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel…
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‘Jumping Genes’ Are More Than Parasitic DNA
You might imagine that the DNA in your cells has a simple history. But that’s not the entire story. Nearly half of your genome is a wild drama, thanks to a genetic material called transposons that can clip itself out…
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Audio Edition: For Hong Wang, Living Fully in the Math World Means Threading the Needle
Focus, commitment, and insight resulted in a “once in a century” proof. Hong Wang is now just the third woman to win a Fields Medal. The article Living Fully in the Math World Means Threading the Needle first appeared…
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Are the Little Red Dots Actually Black Hole Suns?
When all you can see is a speck, it’s hard to tell what you’re looking at. Astronomers first argued that little red dots spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2022 were distant galaxies on the cosmic horizon,…
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Four-Color Theorem Is Still a Math Favorite
In 1852, the mathematician Francis Guthrie was coloring in a map of English counties when he noticed that he needed only four colors. Was this always true, he wondered? The question captured the imagination of…
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Audio Edition: ‘Reverse Mathematics’ Illuminates Why Hard Problems Are Hard
Researchers have used metamathematical techniques to show that certain theorems that look superficially distinct are in fact logically equivalent. The article ‘Reverse Mathematics’ Illuminates Why Hard Problems Are…
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Does Computer Science Need Computers?
In popular culture, computer science is practically synonymous with programming. There are obviously branches of computer science in which computer hardware and software are essential, such as in the design of…
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How the Brain Compresses Our Noisy World
If you are well rested and full, your brain tells you that a bruised overripe apple is a piece of subpar fruit to be passed over. However, if you are exhausted and hungry, an overripe apple is categorized as…
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Audio Edition: A Cell So Minimal That It Challenges Definitions of Life
The newly described microbe represents a world of parasitic, intercellular biodiversity only beginning to be revealed by genome sequencing. The article A Cell So Minimal That It Challenges Definitions of Life first…
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Picking Teams With the Math of Imbalance
Combinatorial discrepancy theory is a branch of mathematics concerned with balance. If you’re making two teams — sports, trivia, you name it — how can you make sure that they’re perfectly balanced and fair, skill-wise?…
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What Makes a Fluid a Fluid?
The Navier-Stokes equations are enormously successful at predicting how fluids flow and swirl. But they fail to account for the microscopic bits that make up matter. But now math based on symmetries offers a new…
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Audio Edition: New Proofs Probe Soap-Film Singularities
Mathematicians have broken through a long-standing barrier in the study of “minimizing surfaces,” which play an important role in both math and physics. The article New Proofs Probe Soap-Film Singularities first…
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Is AI Reasoning Right for the Wrong Reasons?
Reasoning comes in many technically defined forms, but the basic procedure is easily recognizable: arriving at a sound conclusion by linking together intermediate steps that logically follow from each other. But when…
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Why Am I Left-Handed?
Why are only 10% of people left-handed? Geneticists, developmental biologists, neuroscientists, and evolutionary biologists have all sought explanations, resulting in an astronomical amount of research into the mystery…
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Audio Edition: Old ‘Ghost’ Theory of Quantum Gravity Makes a Comeback
Has the secret to understanding gravity been hiding in plain sight for nearly 50 years? The article Old ‘Ghost’ Theory of Quantum Gravity Makes a Comeback first appeared on Quanta Magazine.
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A Dark Dimension Could Link Two of the Universe’s Great Unknowns
Generally, dark energy and dark matter are regarded as separate entities, but recent astronomical observations have spurred scientists to look further into a less widespread idea — that the two are in fact physically…
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Is Life Just Different?
There’s no scientific consensus about what makes living things so different from inorganic material. Some scientists cite replication or metabolism. Others have another answer: Living organisms are different because…
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Audio Edition: ‘World Models,’ an Old Idea in AI, Mount a Comeback
You’re carrying around in your head a model of how the world works. Will AI systems need to do the same? The article ‘World Models,’ an Old Idea in AI, Mount a Comeback first appeared on Quanta Magazine.
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How Many Shuffles Do You Really Need to Randomize Your Deck?
In 1992, mathematicians Dave Bayer and Persi Diaconis proved that seven riffle shuffles are enough to shuffle a deck of cards — but only if you can cut your deck with precision. Decades later, a new proof has finally…
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Will We Ever Be Able To Forecast Volcanic Eruptions Like Weather?
Volcano forecasting can save countless lives. But most of the time warnings are more like educated guesses. How close are we to forecasting volcano behavior the way we forecast the weather? On this episode of The…
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Audio Edition: Tiny Tubes Reveal Clues to the Evolution of Complex Life
Scientists have identified tubulin structures in primitive Asgard archea that may have been the precursor of our own cellular skeletons. The article Tiny Tubes Reveal Clues to the Evolution of Complex Life first…
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Are Memories Transferable — or Edible?
In the 60s, an eccentric behavioral psychologist pureed a bunch of planarian worms and fed them to other ones. For years after, he claimed that the cannibal worms learned the ground-up worms’ memories. Could he have…
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How Many Elementary Particles Are There, Really?
How many pieces are there in the Standard Model of particle physics? 17, 30, 37, 61, 118? Or is the true answer much larger — and not even an integer? It depends on your taste for complexity — and mystery. On this…
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Audio Edition: What Is the Fourier Transform?
Amid the chaos of revolutionary France, one man’s mathematical obsession gave way to a calculation that now underpins much of mathematics and physics. The calculation, called the Fourier transform, decomposes any…
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The 'Truth Machine' That Is Changing Math
The groundbreaking proof assistant Lean acts as a sort of automatic quality control. It’s gaining ground in the math world — in part because it can interact with AI to open new avenues of inquiry. But there are…
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Ecotypes Make the Idea of a Species Even Fuzzier
How do you define a species? The question has been controversial since the days of Darwin. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks with writer Marlowe Starling about how recent advances in…
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What Actually Causes Lightning?
Thunderstorms have captivated humanity for millennia, and yet their inner workings remain deeply mysterious. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, guest host and Quanta senior editor Hannah Waters speaks with staff…
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Audio Edition: Astrophysicists Find No ‘Hair’ on Black Holes
According to Einstein’s theory of gravity, black holes have only a small handful of distinguishing characteristics. Quantum theory implies they may have more. Now an experimental search finds that any of this extra…
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The AI Revolution in Math Has Arrived
In 2026, shock at AI’s growing mathematical abilities turned into something more like wonder — and concern. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks with writer Konstantin Kakaes about how AI is…
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Ice Is Way More Complex Than It Seems
Over the past decade, computer simulations have predicted tens of thousands of possible forms of ice. Though uncommon on our planet, exotic ice may exist in off-Earth environments, from cold and amorphous comet tails…
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Audio Edition: How Distillation Makes AI Models Smaller and Cheaper
Fundamental technique lets researchers use a big, expensive “teacher” model to train a “student” model for less. The story How Distillation Makes AI Models Smaller and Cheaper first appeared on Quanta Magazine.
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Our Immune Systems Are Full of Ancient Weapons
Billions of years ago, battles between bacteria and viruses wrote the rulebook for how hosts and pathogens behave. Today, our immune system follows suit. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks…
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What Can We Gain by Losing Infinity?
Most mathematicians take the notion of infinity for granted — it’s deeply rooted in math’s most fundamental assumptions. But a small group of researchers hopes to banish infinity completely. On this episode of The…
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Audio Edition: The Cells That Breathe Two Ways
In a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park, a microbe does something that life shouldn’t be able to do: It breathes oxygen and sulfur at the same time. The story The Cells That Breathe Two Ways first appeared on…
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Quantum Mechanics Might Be a Secret Key to Secure Communication
Together, Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard figured out how to use the laws of quantum physics to keep secret messages safe from eavesdroppers. Their efforts have earned them one of the highest awards in computing…
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Is String Theory Still Our Best Hope?
Is string theory the one true “theory of everything?” Some physicists swear it’s a fundamental ingredient of nature. Others wish it would just go away. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks…
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Audio Edition: New Physics-Inspired Proof Probes the Borders of Disorder
For decades, mathematicians have struggled to understand matrices that reflect both order and randomness, like those that model semiconductors. A new method could change that. The story New Physics-Inspired Proof…
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One of Nature’s Most Complex Molecular Machines
At the center of little holes in cell nuclei is a mystery. Here, clumps of proteins wiggle disordered tails around like seaweed. They drive a molecular machine that moves countless molecules in and out of the nucleus…
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The Fundamental Tension at the Heart of Math
We tend to think of math as all about logic and rigor. But what “rigor” actually means has been shaken up quite a few times over the past few centuries. The newest attempt to formalize math comes in the form of the…
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Audio Edition: AI Comes Up With Bizarre Physics Experiments. But They Work.
Artificial intelligence software is designing novel experimental protocols that improve upon the work of human physicists, although the humans are still “doing a lot of baby-sitting.” The story AI Comes Up With…
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Why Do Humanoid Robots Still Struggle With the Small Stuff?
Humanoid robots can run, crawl, and sort objects in flashy demos. So why can’t they reliably climb stairs or open doors? On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks with contributing writer John…
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Uniting a Century of Digital and Analog Astronomy
To better understand our cosmos, some astronomers and astrophysicists go old school. Preserved beautifully on a hundred years of glass plate photographs are images of our night sky and its ever changing variations. On…
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Audio Edition: Researchers Uncover Hidden Ingredients Behind AI Creativity
Image generators are designed to mimic their training data, so where does their apparent creativity come from? A recent study suggests that it’s an inevitable by-product of their architecture. The story Researchers…
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Astrocytes Might Be in Charge of the Brain
We tend to think of neurons as the sole engine of our thoughts, emotions, and everything in between. For decades, a group of large brain cells called astrocytes have been thought of as mere packing peanuts for the…
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The Infinite Heist - Part 2
In 1874, Georg Cantor published one of the most important papers in math’s 4,000-year history. Some ideas in it were stolen. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, the second of a two-parter, host Samir Patel speaks…
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