Podcasts · Science

The Joy of Why

Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine

77 episodes

“The Joy of Why” is a Quanta Magazine podcast about curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge. The mathematician and author Steven Strogatz and the cosmologist and author Janna Levin take turns interviewing leading researchers about the great scientific and mathematical questions of our time. New episodes are released every other Wednesday.

More about the show

Quanta Magazine is a Pulitzer Prize–winning, editorially independent online publication launched and supported by the Simons Foundation to illuminate big ideas in science and math through public service journalism. Quanta’s reporters and editors focus on developments in mathematics, theoretical physics, theoretical computer science and the basic life sciences, emphasizing timely, accurate, in-depth and well-crafted articles for its broad discerning audience. In 2023, Steven Strogatz received a National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communications partly for his work on “The Joy of Why.”

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  1. How Do Fungi Keep the Planet Healthy?

    · 57 min · S5 E10

    People may think of soil as just dirt, but it is anything but inert. Beneath your feet, a vast network of mycorrhizal fungi is hard at work, trading minerals with plant roots. This trading system helps enrich the soil,…

  2. What Does the Fourth Dimension Actually Look Like?

    · 53 min · S5 E9

    We know all about how things exist in the three dimensions of length, width, and height. Physicists often talk about time as a fourth dimension, but what if there were a fourth spatial dimension — another direction…

  3. Where Does the Quantum World End and Ours Begin?

    · 47 min

    Quantum mechanics may be one of the most precisely tested paradigms in science, but there’s still no universally accepted interpretation of what it tells us about reality. How do we get from the wave-like behavior of…

  4. Live from ICM 2026: What Is Math For in the Age of AI?

    · 53 min

    Mathematicians are witnessing a profound shift in their field. AI systems are now producing proofs, spotting connections between distant fields, and, in a few cases, solving problems that had stumped mathematicians for…

  5. Are We Thinking Correctly about AI Intelligence?

    · 52 min

    When an LLM answers a question, is it reasoning like humans, or just producing text that looks like reasoning? The distinction isn’t just philosophical, this determines what we can trust AI to do, how closely we need…

  6. How Does Touch Lead To Pain Or Pleasure?

    · 55 min

    Pain and pleasure seem like simple facts of life, but they are far from it. Neuroscientists still cannot say why physical pain differs from psychological pain, for instance, nor why a loved one’s touch soothes while a…

  7. How Fast Is the Universe Really Expanding?

    · 1 h 05 min

    One of the biggest mysteries in cosmology seems to keep getting bigger. Astronomers have known since the 1930s that the universe is expanding, but in the 1990s, the discovery that this expansion is accelerating rather…

  8. Will We Ever Find Alien Civilizations?

    · 54 min

    Does intelligent life exist elsewhere in the universe? The question has captivated us for centuries, but despite decades of searching it remains frustratingly unanswered. Every so often a curious signal appears —…

  9. What Is the Positive Grassmannian and Why Does It Show Up Everywhere?

    · 52 min

    What links certain mathematical models of traffic flow, shallow-water waves, and quantum particle scattering? The surprising answer lies in a corner of the algebraic combinatorics world that goes by the name of…

  10. What’s the Future of Gene Editing?

    · 51 min · S5 E1

    One of the most surprising and remarkable discoveries in recent scientific history has been CRISPR. Short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, CRISPR is a form of immune system that evolved in…

  11. More Conversations, Complex Questions, and Bold Ideas in Season Five of ‘The Joy of Why’

    · 1:22

    What is the future of gene editing with CRISPR? Has AI changed mathematics forever? Will we find other civilizations in the universe? What if we’ve been wrong about dark energy all along? These are just a few of the…

  12. Do Beautiful Birds Have an Evolutionary Advantage?

    · 46 min · S4 E12

    Birds are not merely descendants of dinosaurs — they are dinosaurs. For Yale evolutionary biologist and ornithologist Richard Prum, birds have been a lifelong passion and a window into some of evolution’s most…

  13. How Can Math Protect Our Data?

    · 40 min · S4 E11

    Every time data travels — from smartphones to the cloud, or across the vacuum of space — it relies on a silent but vigilant guardian in the form of error-correcting codes. These codes, baked into nearly every digital…

  14. Why Did The Universe Begin?

    · 52 min · S4 E10

    Most cosmologists agree that our universe had a beginning. But the finer details about the Big Bang remain a mystery. A history of everything would explain all, or so theoretical physicists hoped. In his final years,…

  15. How Can Regional Models Advance Climate Science?

    · 45 min · S4 E9

    Climate models have changed the way we view the world. While effective, these models are imperfect, and scientists are constantly looking at ways to improve their accuracy and predictability. MIT professor Elfatih…

  16. How Does Graph Theory Shape Our World?

    · 34 min · S4 E8

    Born in the 18th century when Leonhard Euler solved the puzzle of the seven bridges of Königsberg, graph theory has become a foundational tool in mathematics. It studies relationships through nodes (vertices) and the…

  17. Does Form Really Shape Function?

    · 47 min · S4 E7

    What links a Möbius strip, brain folds and termite mounds? The answer is Harvard University’s L. Mahadevan, whose career has been devoted to using mathematics and physics to explore the form and function of common…

  18. Will We Ever Prove String Theory?

    · 49 min · S4 E6

    For decades, string theory has been hailed as the leading candidate for the theory of everything in our universe. Yet despite its mathematical elegance, the theory still lacks empirical evidence. One of its most…

  19. How Did Geometry Create Modern Physics?

    · 46 min · S4 E5

    Geometry is one of the oldest disciplines in human history, yet the worlds it can describe extend far beyond its original use. What began thousands of years ago as a way to measure land and build pyramids was given…

  20. Will AI Ever Understand Language Like Humans?

    · 42 min · S4 E4

    Large language models (LLMs) are becoming increasingly more impressive at creating human-like text and answering questions, but whether they can understand the meaning of the words they generate is a hotly debated…

  21. Can Quantum Gravity Be Created in the Lab?

    · 43 min · S4 E3

    Quantum gravity is one of the biggest unresolved and challenging problems in physics, as it seeks to reconcile quantum mechanics, which governs the microscopic world, and general relativity, which describes the…

  22. What Is the True Promise of Quantum Computing?

    · 39 min · S4 E2

    Quantum computing promises unprecedented speed, but in practice, it’s proven remarkably difficult to find important questions that quantum machines can solve faster than classical ones. One of the most notable…

  23. How Did Multicellular Life Evolve?

    · 46 min · S4 E1

    At first, life on Earth was simple. Cells existed, functioned and reproduced as free-living individuals. But then, something remarkable happened. Some cells joined forces, working together instead of being alone. This…

  24. S4 Preview: More Big Questions and No Sasquatches

    · 18 min · Trailer

    How did complex life evolve? Where did space-time come from? Will computers ever understand language like we do? How did geometry create modern physics? These are just a few of the big and bold questions that we’ll be…

  25. How Will We Know We’re Not Alone?

    · 38 min · S3 E24

    We have identified thousands of planets just in our neighborhood in the Milky Way, mostly from the way they impact their host stars. Basic calculations suggest that there are countless more across the galaxy, and that…

  26. How Is Cell Death Essential to Life?

    · 39 min · S3 E23

    Death might seem like a pure loss, the disappearance of what makes a living thing distinct from everything else on our planet. But zoom in closer, to the cellular level, and death takes on a different, more nuanced…

  27. What Can Birdsong Teach Us About Human Language?

    · 42 min · S3 E22

    It’s fair to say that enjoyment of a podcast would be severely limited without the human capacity to create and understand speech. That capacity has often been cited as a defining characteristic of our species, and one…

  28. How Is AI Changing the Science of Prediction?

    · 37 min · S3 E21

    Scientists routinely build quantitative models — of, say, the weather or an epidemic — and then use them to make predictions, which they can then test against the real thing. This work can reveal how well we understand…

  29. Why Is It So Hard to Define a Species?

    · 30 min · S3 E20

    The “species” category is almost certainly the best known of all the taxonomic classifications that biologists use to organize life’s vast diversity. It’s a linchpin of both conservation policy and evolutionary theory,…

  30. How Can Math Help Beat Cancer?

    · 43 min · S3 E19

    When we think about medicine’s war on cancer, treatments such as surgery, radiation and chemotherapy spring to mind first. Now there is another potential weapon for defeating tumors: statistics and mathematical models…

  31. What Can Cave Life Tell Us About Alien Ecosystems?

    · 45 min · S3 E18

    If instruments do someday detect evidence of life beyond Earth, whether it’s in this solar system or in the farther reaches of space, astrobiologists want to be ready. One of the best ways to learn how alien life might…

  32. From Sidedoor — Cosmic Journey I: "Stellar Buffoonery"

    · 35 min

    As a treat to our listeners, we are posting a full episode of Sidedoor, a podcast that explores the treasures in the Smithsonian's vaults. Subscribe to Sidedoor from Smithsonian wherever you listen to podcasts! Black…

  33. Can Thermodynamics Go Quantum?

    · 43 min · S3 E17

    The principles of thermodynamics are cornerstones of our understanding of physics. But they were discovered in the era of steam-driven technology, long before anyone dreamed of quantum mechanics. In this episode,…

  34. Do We Need a New Theory of Gravity?

    · 42 min · S3 E16

    Observations of the cosmos suggest that unseen sources of gravity — dark matter — tug at the stars in galaxies, while another mysterious force — dark energy — drives the universe to expand at an ever-increasing rate.…

  35. Are Robots About to Level Up?

    · 38 min · S3 E15

    Within just a few years, artificial intelligence systems that sometimes seem to display almost human characteristics have gone from science fiction to apps on your phone. But there’s another AI-influenced frontier that…

  36. How Does Math Keep Our Secrets?

    · 24 min · S3 E14

    Can you keep a secret? Modern techniques for maintaining the confidentiality of information are based on mathematical problems that are inherently too difficult for anyone to solve without the right hints. Yet what…

  37. Will AI Ever Have Common Sense?

    · 44 min · S3 E13

    Common sense rules our world. This fundamental, sometimes trivial knowledge is inherent to how humans interpret language. Yet, some of these simple human truths are so obvious that they're rarely put into words. And…

  38. What Can Tiling Patterns Teach Us?

    · 39 min · S3 E12

    In the tiling of wallpaper and bathroom floors, collective repeated patterns often emerge. Mathematicians have long tried to find a tiling shape that never repeats in this way. In 2023, they lauded an unexpected…

  39. How Is Science Even Possible?

    · 36 min · S3 E11

    The universe seems like it should be unfathomably complex. How then is science able to crack fundamental questions about nature and life? Scientists and philosophers alike have often commented on the “unreasonable”…

  40. Can Psychedelics Improve Mental Health?

    · 40 min · S3 E10

    During traumatic periods and their aftermath, our brains can fall into habitual ways of thinking that may be helpful in the short run but become maladaptive years later. For the brain to readjust to new situations…

  41. What Happens in the Brain to Cause Depression?

    · 33 min · S3 E9

    For decades, the best drug therapies for treating depression, like SSRIs, have been based on the idea that depressed brains don’t have enough of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Yet for almost as long, it’s been clear…

  42. Will Better Superconductors Transform the World?

    · 29 min · S3 E8

    If superconductors — materials that conduct electricity without any resistance — worked at temperatures and pressures close to what we would consider normal, they would be world-changing. They could dramatically…

  43. What Does Milk Do for Babies?

    · 35 min · S3 E7

    Milk is more than just a food for babies. Breast milk has evolved to deliver thousands of diverse molecules including growth factors, hormones and antibodies, as well as microbes. Elizabeth Johnson, a molecular…

  44. Can Information Escape a Black Hole?

    · 29 min · S3 E6

    Nothing escapes a black hole… or does it? In the 1970s, Stephen Hawking described a subtle process by which black holes can “evaporate,” with some particles evading gravitational oblivion. This phenomenon, now dubbed…

  45. How Is Flocking Like Computing?

    · 40 min · S3 E5

    Birds flock. Locusts swarm. Fish school. In these chaotic assemblies, order somehow emerges. Collective behaviors differ in their details from one species to another, but they largely adhere to principles of collective…

  46. What Is Quantum Teleportation?

    · 30 min · S3 E4

    Quantum teleportation isn’t just science fiction; it’s entirely real and happening in laboratories today. But teleporting quantum particles and information is a far cry from beaming people through space. In some ways,…

  47. What Is the Nature of Time?

    · 31 min · S3 E3

    Time seems linear to us: We remember the past, experience the present and predict the future, moving consecutively from one moment to the next. But why is it that way, and could time ultimately be a kind of illusion?…

  48. How Did Altruism Evolve?

    · 34 min · S3 E2

    We often talk about evolution as the survival of the fittest. But if it is, then where did the widespread (and widely admired) impulse to help others even at great cost to ourselves come from? In this episode, host…

  49. What Makes for ‘Good’ Math?

    · 36 min · S3 E1

    We tend to think of mathematics as purely logical, but the teaching of math, its usefulness and its workings are packed with nuance. So what is “good” mathematics? In 2007, the mathematician Terence Tao wrote an essay…

  50. S4 Preview: More Big Questions and No Sasquatches

    · 18 min · Trailer

    How did complex life evolve? Where did space-time come from? Will computers ever understand language like we do? How did geometry create modern physics? These are just a few of the big and bold questions that we’ll be…

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