The mathematician and author Steven Strogatz interviews leading researchers about the great scientific and mathematical questions of our time.
Similar Podcasts
El Siglo 21 es Hoy
Un pódcast a fondo sobre tecnología, ciencia y entretenimiento (no siempre en ese orden). Ganador de 2 Latin Podcast Awards y del Premio Nacional de Periodismo CPB 2022. Los episodios de este pódcast son monólogos divertidos para aprender sobre gadgets, apps, consejos tecnológicos, series en Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Disney+, Star+; y aplicativos para Android y para iOS. Y mucho de Apple, Android, Windows y Chromium. También ciencias, astronomía y satélites con tono entretenido. El pódcast "El Siglo 21 es Hoy" se publica desde Bogotá, y casi siempre incluye el paisaje sonoro espontáneo de la ciudad. Por favor usa auriculares para disfrutar el paisaje sonoro. Es presentado por Félix Riaño, @LocutorCo hablando en tono familiar sobre la vida cotidiana llena de tecnología para productividad y entretenimiento. Félix es el mismo que habla de noticias en El Primer Café de El Tiempo y Spotify Studios. Ese es él en su faceta más seria. Allá habla de noticias de actualidad y aquí habla de todo lo que aprende de series, astronomía, apps y tecnología. ¡Manda tus comentarios aquí o en https://instagram.com/LocutorCo !
La historia es ayer
Descubre cómo un ladrillo del siglo 16 se adelantó a Ikea y cómo el VHS fue el precursor de Netflix. Viaja miles de años en el tiempo excavando unos pocos metros de tierra, aprende lo que los humanos no se atreven a decir removiendo entre su basura. Escrito y dirigido por Marcus H, el arqueólogo Alfredo González Ruibal nos acompaña en este viaje a lo más profundo de la condición humana.
The Infinite Monkey Cage
Brian Cox and Robin Ince host a witty, irreverent look at the world through scientists' eyes.
How Will We Know We're Not Alone?
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 billions of them could potentially support life. But what kind of life they host, and how we would be able to detect the presence of those biological processes from Earth, remain big questions in the world of exoplanets and astrobiology. What technologies might lie ahead to help us answer the question of whether we are alone in the universe? Lisa Kaltenegger, an astrophysicist and astrobiologist at Cornell University, talks to Janna Levin about that search, the atmospheric fingerprints of life, and why an advanced alien civilization might decide not to talk to us.
How Is Cell Death Essential to Life?
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 it takes on a different, more nuanced meaning. There is a challenge in simply defining what makes an individual cell alive or dead. Scientists today are working to understand the various ways and reasons that cells disappear, and what these processes mean to biological systems. In this episode, cellular biologist Shai Shaham talks to Steven Strogatz about the different forms of cell death, their roles in evolution and disease, and why the right kinds and patterns of cell death are essential to our development and well-being.
What Can Birdsong Teach Us About Human Language?
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 that sets us apart in the long history of life on Earth. Yet we know that other species communicate in complex ways. Studies of the neurological foundations of language suggest that birdsong, or communication among bats or elephants, originates with brain structures similar to our own. So why do some species vocalize while others don’t? In this episode, Erich Jarvis, who studies behavior and neurogenetics at the Rockefeller University, chats with Janna Levin about the surprising connections between human speech, birdsong and dance.
How Is AI Changing the Science of Prediction?
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 complex phenomena, and also dictate where research should go next. In recent years, the remarkable successes of “black box” systems such as large language models suggest that it is sometimes possible to make successful predictions without knowing how something works at all. In this episode, noted statistician Emmanuel Candès and host Steven Strogatz discuss using statistics, data science and AI in the study of everything from college admissions to election forecasting to drug discovery.
How Is AI Changing the Science of Prediction?
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, though in practice biologists have struggled to find a definition that works across the natural world. In this episode, Kevin de Queiroz, a zoologist and evolutionary biologist, talks with host Janna Levin about the variety of ways to conceive of a species, and ways to understand the relationships among living things.
How Can Math Help Beat Cancer?
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 that can optimize the selection, combination or timing of treatment. Building and feeding these models requires accounting for the complexity of the body, and recognizing that cancer cells are constantly evolving. In this episode, host Steven Strogatz hears from Franziska Michor, a computational biologist, about how our understanding of evolutionary dynamics is being used to devise new anticancer therapies.
What Can Cave Life Tell Us About Alien Ecosystems?
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 function can be to study the organisms called extremophiles, which live in incredibly challenging environments on or in the Earth. In this episode, Penelope Boston, a microbiologist who has worked for many years with NASA, speaks with Janna Levin about the bizarre life found in habitats such as caves, how it would be possible to detect life beyond our solar system and what it would mean for humanity if we do.
Can Thermodynamics Go Quantum?
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, the theoretical physicist Nicole Yunger Halpern talks to host Steven Strogatz about how physicists today are reinterpreting concepts such as work, energy and information for a quantum world.
Do We Need a New Theory of Gravity?
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. The evidence for both of them, however, hinges on assumptions that gravity works the same way at all scales. What if that’s not true? In this episode, theoretical physicist Claudia de Rham explains her work on an alternative explanation called “massive gravity” to host Janna Levin.
Are Robots About to Level Up?
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 is developing rapidly and remains untamed: robotics. Can the technologies that have helped computers get smarter now bring similar improvements to the robots that will work alongside us? In this episode, Daniela Rus, a pioneering roboticist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, talks to host Steven Strogatz about the surprising inspirations from biology that may help robots rise to new levels.
How Does Math Keep Secrets?
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 does that mean when quantum computers capable of solving many problems astronomically faster are on the horizon? In this episode, host Janna Levin talks with computer scientist Boaz Barak about the cryptographic techniques that keep information confidential, and why “security through mathematics” beats “security through obscurity.” Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn or your favorite podcasting app, or you can stream it from Quanta.
Will AI Ever Have Common Sense?
Ask a question of ChatGPT and other, similar chatbots and there’s a good chance you’ll be impressed at how adeptly it comes up with a good answer — unless it spits out unrealistic nonsense instead. Part of what’s mystifying about these kinds of machine learning systems is that they are fundamentally black boxes. No one knows precisely how they arrive at the answers that they do. Given that mystery, is it possible that these systems in some way truly understand the world and the questions they answer? In this episode, the computer scientist Yejin Choi of the University of Washington and host Steven Strogatz discuss the capabilities and limitations of chatbots and the large language models, or LLMs, on which they are built. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn or your favorite podcasting app, or you can stream it from Quanta.
How Is Tiling Without Repetition Possible?
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 amateur victor. That discovery of the elusive aperiodic monotile propelled the field into new dimensions. The study of tessellation is much more than a fun thought exercise: Peculiar, rare tiling formations can sometimes seem to tell us something about the natural world, from the structure of minerals to the organization of the cosmos. In this episode, Janna Levin speaks with mathematician Natalie Priebe Frank about these complex geometric combinations, and where they may pop up unexpectedly. Specifically, they explore her research into quasicrystals — crystals that, like aperiodic tiles, enigmatically resist structural uniformity.. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn or your favorite podcasting app, or you can stream it from Quanta.
How Is Science Even Possible?
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” success of mathematics at describing the universe. That success has helped science probe some profound mysteries — but as the physicist Nigel Goldenfeld points out, it also helps that the “hard” physical sciences, where this progress is most evident, are in major ways simpler than the “soft” biological sciences. In this episode, Goldenfeld speaks with co-host Steven Strogatz about the scientific importance of asking the right questions at the right time. They also discuss the mysterious effects of “emergence,” the phenomenon that allows new properties to arise in systems at different scales, imposing unexpected order on cosmic complexity. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn or your favorite podcasting app, or you can stream it from Quanta.
Can Psychedelics Improve Mental Health?
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 later in life, it needs to be restored to the malleable state it was in when the habits first formed. That is exactly what Gül Dölen, a neuroscientist and psychiatric researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, is working toward in her lab. What is her surprising tool? Psychedelics. In this episode, Dölen shares with co-host Janna Levin the surprising potential of psychedelics to change the lives of those grappling with addiction, depression and post-traumatic stress. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn or your favorite podcasting app, or you can stream it from Quanta.