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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.
(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.)
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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 proteins that let it brea
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 (https://www.quantamagazine.org
'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 then, two more phantom ga
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 when he posted a proo
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 Before Anyone Else (http
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 speaks with contributing
‘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 of the DNA sequence, fl
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 (https://www.quantamagazine.org/hong-
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, mainly because of their
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 hobbyists and professionals al
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 Hard (https://www.quantam
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 operating systems or the study
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 much-needed food. But how is the
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 (https://www.quantamagazine.org
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? You start with vector
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 conception of fluids and why
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 (https://www.quantamagazine.org/ne
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 it comes to artificial
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 of handedness. No one
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 (https://www.quantamagazine.org/old-ghost-theory-of-quantum-gravity-makes-a-comeback-
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 intertwined. On this ep
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 they do stuff — for reas
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 (https://www.quantamagazine.org/world-models-an-old-idea-in-ai-mount-a-
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 extended the finding to
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 Quanta Podcast, host Hannah
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 (https://www.quantamagazine.org/ti
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 been… right? On this epi
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 episode of The Quanta Podc
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 function into its parts. Th
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 concerns, too. On this episod
