The Quanta Podcast

We’re living in the golden age of cryptography. Since the 1970s, we've had more confidence in encryption than ever before. But there's a difference between confidence and absolute certainty. And computer scientists care a lot about that difference.The search is always on for better, more secure secrets. But is it possible for digital security to be truly, provably unbreakable? Maybe, with a little help from math and physics. On this week’s episode, host Samir Patel talks with 𝘘𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢 computer science staff writer Ben Brubaker about a developing frontier of digital security: quantum cryptography. This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.Audio Coda from the Bletchley Park Trust.

How many oranges can you fit in a box? Mathematicians are obsessed with perfecting their answer to this question in not just our familiar three-dimensional world, but in higher and higher dimensions beyond it. For several decades, they've made only minimal progress toward finding an optimal solution. Then, this past April, an outsider to the field named Boaz Klartag posted a proof that bested these previous records by a significant margin.In this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel and Quanta math staff writer Joseph Howlett discuss how Klartag resuscitated an old technique that experts had abandoned decades earlier to optimize sphere packing in any arbitrarily high dimension. This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine. Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.Audio coda created by Daniel Simion

A young computer scientist and two colleagues show that searches within data structures called hash tables can be much faster than previously deemed possible.The story How Undergraduate Upends a 40-Year-Old Data Science Conjecture first appeared on Quanta Magazine.

As far as we know, quantum mechanics is a universal theory that explains matter and light more or less perfectly. It shows us why atoms don't collapse and why electrons don't spiral into the nucleus of the atom. It explains why glass is clear, why grass is green, why the sky is blue. But no one fully understands how the math of quantum mechanics connects with the reality we live in. One could spend a lifetime getting into the weeds and still have unanswered questions. In honor of quantum mechanics’ 100th birthday, host Samir Patel talks with Quanta physics staff writer Charlie Wood about his recent journey to the birthplace of quantum mechanics, a German island in the North Sea. On Helgoland, Charlie asked physicists many questions about many worlds over many beers. This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.

When some people smell the molecule benzyl acetate, they identify a distinctly banana-y scent. But when others sniff the same compound, they get hints of nail polish remover. How can this be? Smell is a tricky sensory process to pin down. Our perception of scents is wide-ranging and often depends on lived experience. But researchers are building a deeper understanding of the processes underlying our noses’ elusive machinery. In this episode, host Samir Patel and 𝘘𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢 biology staff writer Yasemin Saplakoglu explore the invisible sense that shapes our reality, from nostalgic childhood fragrances — lavender, old books — to familiar irksome odors — skunks, garbage. This topic was covered in a recent story for 𝘘𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢 𝘔𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘦.Each week on 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘘𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢 𝘗𝘰𝘥𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘵, 𝘘𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢 𝘔𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘦 editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.

By screening films in a brain scanner, neuroscientists discovered a rich library of neural scripts — from a trip through an airport to a marriage proposal — that form scaffolds for memories of our experiences.The story How ‘Event Scripts’ Structure Our Personal Memories first appeared on Quanta Magazine.

The study of natural language processing, or NLP, dates back to the 1940s. It gave Stephen Hawking a voice, Siri a brain and social media companies another way to target us with ads. In less than five years, large language models broke NLP and made it anew.In 2019, Quanta reported on a then-groundbreaking NLP system called BERT without once using the phrase “large language model.” A mere five and a half years later, LLMs are everywhere, igniting discovery, disruption and debate in whatever scientific community they touch. But the one they touched first — for better, worse and everything in between — was natural language processing. What did that impact feel like to the people experiencing it firsthand?Recently, John Pavlus interviewed 19 current and former NLP researchers to tell that story. In this episode, Pavlus speaks with host and Quanta editor in chief Samir Patel about this oral history of “When ChatGPT Broke an Entire Field.”Each week on 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘘𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢 𝘗𝘰𝘥𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘵, 𝘘𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢 𝘔𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘦 editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.Audio coda from LingoJam

As weird as it sounds, infinity comes in many shapes and sizes. And attempting to quantify it is sort of like a dog chasing its own tail. Or like infinities chasing infinities infinite numbers of times. But some mathematicians are obsessed with the quest.In this episode, host Samir Patel and 𝘘𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢 math editor Jordana Cepelewicz probe the bizarre edges of the mathematical universe, a realm *almost* impossible to put into words. This topic was covered by Greg Barber in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.

Britta Späth has dedicated her career to proving a single, central conjecture. She’s finally succeeded, alongside her partner, Marc Cabanes.The story After 20 Years, Math Couple Solves Major Group Theory Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine.

Colorful messages are constantly being exchanged across the natural world, to communicate everything from sexual attraction to self defense. But which came first: these evocative signals or the sophisticated vision needed to see them? In this episode, host Samir Patel speaks with contributing writer Molly Herring about free diving, mantis shrimp, and the challenges of tracking coloration through evolutionary history. This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.Each week on The Quanta Podcast, 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.

Where does gravity come from? In both general relativity and quantum mechanics, this question is a big problem. One controversial theory proposes that the force arises from the universe's tendency toward disorder, or entropy. In this episode, host Samir Patel speaks with contributing writer George Musser about the long-shot idea called "entropic gravity," which Musser covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.Each week on The Quanta Podcast, 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.Audio coda provided by Cosmic Perspective.

Emmy Noether showed that fundamental physical laws are just a consequence of simple symmetries. A century later, her insights continue to shape physics.The story How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine.

The Busy Beaver Challenge, an open online collaboration, started in 2022 to finally solve a major problem in theoretical computer science. Over time, the online community grew to include more than 20 contributors from around the world, most of them without traditional academic credentials. In July 2024, the group announced that they finally solved the puzzle, bringing a conclusion to over 40 years of effort.On this week’s episode of The Quanta Podcast, computer science staff writer Ben Brubaker explains the tantalizing Busy Beaver puzzle, which he covered in depth last year, in "With Fifth Busy Beaver, Researchers Approach Computation’s Limits."Each week on The Quanta Podcast, 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.

Turbulence is a notoriously difficult phenomenon to study. Mathematicians are now starting to untangle it at its smallest scales.This is the sixth episode of The Quanta Podcast. 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.Audio coda provided by Mount Washington Observatory

Individual cells in the brain light up for specific ideas. These concept neurons, once known as “Jennifer Aniston cells,” help us think, imagine and remember episodes from our lives.The story Concept Cells Help Your Brain Abstract Information and Build Memories first appeared on Quanta Magazine.

Changes in the number, shape, efficiency and interconnectedness of organelles in the cells of flight muscles provide extra energy for birds’ continent-spanning feats.This is the fifth episode of The Quanta Podcast. 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.

Black hole and Big Bang singularities break our best theory of gravity. A trilogy of theorems hints that physicists must go to the ends of space and time to find a fix.This is the fourth episode of The Quanta Podcast. 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.

Heat is supposed to ruin anything it touches. But physicists have shown that an idealized form of magnetism is heatproof.The story Heat Destroys All Order. Except for in This One Special Case first appeared on Quanta Magazine.

One computer scientist’s “stunning” proof is the first progress in 50 years on one of the most famous questions in computer science.This is the third episode of our new weekly series The Quanta Podcast, hosted by Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel. This week's guest is Ben Brubaker; he recently published "For Algorithms, a Little Memory Outweighs a Lot of Time.”(If you've been a fan of Quanta Science Podcast, it will continue as 'audio edition episodes' in this same feed every other week.)Historical Recording © Jack Copeland and Jason Long

Mathematicians have started to prepare for a profound shift in what it means to do math.This is the second episode of our new weekly series The Quanta Podcast, hosted by Quanta magazine Editor-in-Chief Samir Patel. This week's guest is Jordana Cepelewicz; she recently published "Mathematical Beauty, Truth and Proof in the Age of AI" for Quanta's AI special package.(If you've been a fan of Quanta Science Podcast, it will continue as 'audio edition episodes' in this same feed every other week.)

Certain grammatical rules never appear in any known language. By constructing artificial languages that have these rules, linguists can use neural networks to explore how people learn.The story Can AI Models Show Us How People Learn? Impossible Languages Point a Way first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The brain’s astounding cellular diversity and networked complexity could show how to make AI better.This is the first episode of our new weekly series The Quanta Podcast, hosted by Quanta magazine Editor-in-Chief Samir Patel. This week's guest is Yasemin Saplakoglu; she recently published "AI Is Nothing Like a Brain, and That’s OK" for Quanta's AI special package.(If you've been a fan of Quanta Science Podcast, it will continue as 'audio edition episodes' in this same feed every other week.)

The Quanta Podcast is your weekly dispatch from the frontiers of science and mathematics. In each episode, editor in chief Samir Patel will talk to the writers and editors behind our most popular, interesting and thought-provoking stories. The first episode of The Quanta Podcast will be live on May 20. In this trailer episode, Patel talks to executive editor Michael Moyer about what Quanta covers, how it has changed over time and our recent special series on “Science, Promise and Peril in the Age of AI.”Join us every Tuesday for stimulating conversations and insights about the biggest ideas in basic science and mathematics.

In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more resilient. It’s an essential step on the long road to practical applications. The post Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The discovery that other vertebrates have healthy, microbial brains is fueling the still controversial possibility that we might have them as well. The post Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup. The post Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A new experimental proposal suggests detecting a particle of gravity is far easier than anyone imagined. Now physicists are debating what it would really prove. The post It Might Be Possible to Detect Gravitons After All first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Zero, which was invented late in history, is special among numbers. New studies are uncovering how the brain creates something out of nothing. The post How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangeness of Zero first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Invisibly to us, insects and other tiny creatures use static electricity to travel, avoid predators, collect pollen and more. New experiments explore how evolution may have influenced this phenomenon. The post The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Cell membranes from comb jellies reveal a new kind of adaptation to the deep sea: curvy lipids that conform to an ideal shape under pressure. The post The Cellular Secret to Resisting the Pressure of the Deep Sea first appeared on Quanta Magazine

While devising a new quantum algorithm, four researchers accidentally established a hard limit on entanglement. The post Computer Scientists Prove That Heat Destroys Quantum Entanglement first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Carbon dioxide’s powerful heat-trapping effect has been traced to a quirk of its quantum structure. The finding may explain climate change better than any computer model. The post Physicists Pinpoint the Quantum Origin of the Greenhouse Effect first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Neuroscience research into people with aphantasia, who don’t experience mental imagery, is revealing how imagination works and demonstrating the sweeping variety in our subjective experiences. The post What Happens in a Mind That Can’t ‘See’ Mental Images first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Physicists have ruled out a mundane explanation for the strange findings of an old Soviet experiment, leaving open the possibility that the results point to a new fundamental particle. The post What Could Explain the Gallium Anomaly? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Researchers have proved that secure quantum encryption is possible in a world without hard problems. The post Cryptographers Discover a New Foundation for Quantum Secrecy first appeared on Quanta Magazine

New experiments reveal how the brain chooses which memories to save and add credence to advice about the importance of rest.

Using machine learning, string theorists are finally showing how microscopic configurations of extra dimensions translate into sets of elementary particles — though not yet those of our universe.

A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic possibility” that insects, octopuses, crustaceans, fish and other overlooked animals experience consciousness.

A generation of physicists has referred to the dark energy that permeates the universe as “the cosmological constant.” Now the largest map of the cosmos to date hints that this mysterious energy has been changing over billions of years.

Electroconvulsive therapy is highly effective in treating major depressive disorder, but no one knows why it works. New research suggests it may restore balance between excitation and inhibition in the brain.

Long-anticipated experiments that use light to mimic gravity are revealing the distribution of energies, forces and pressures inside a subatomic particle for the first time.

Two researchers have proved that Penrose tilings, famous patterns that never repeat, are mathematically equivalent to a kind of quantum error correction. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Quasi Motion” by Kevin MacLeod.

A controversial technique has produced detailed maps of the magnetic fields in colossal galaxy clusters. If confirmed, the approach could be used to reveal where cosmic magnetic fields come from.

Recent observations of an aging, alien planetary system are helping to answer the question: What will happen to our planet when the sun dies? Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Dark Toys” by SYBS.

Recent efforts to map every cell in the human body have researchers floored by unfathomable diversity, with many thousands of subtly different types of cells in the human brain alone. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Confusing Disco” by Birocratic.

Astronomers thought they had solved the mystery of gamma-ray bursts. A few recent events suggest otherwise. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Light Gazing” by Andrew Langdon.

For 50 years, physicists have understood current as a flow of charged particles. But a new experiment has found that in at least one strange material, this understanding falls apart. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Thought Bot” by Audionautix.

Sitting alongside the neurons in your enteric nervous system are underappreciated glial cells, which play key roles in digestion and disease that scientists are only just starting to understand. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Running Out” by Patrick Patrikios.

Cells in the placenta have an unusual trick for activating gentle immune defenses and keeping them turned on when no infection is present. It involves crafting and deploying a fake virus. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Unanswered Questions” by Kevin MacLeod.

The discovery that the brain has different systems for representing small and large numbers provokes new questions about memory, attention and mathematics. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Quasi Motion” by Kevin MacLeod.