Selections on gravity, chaos, and feathers ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
|
| | Earlier this year, we began a new iteration of Quanta's flagship podcast, with editor in chief Samir Patel interviewing the reporters and editors behind stories from the magazine. Here are some of our listeners' favorite episodes. |
|
| | Is Gravity Just Rising Entropy?
Guest: George Musser
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. APPLE | SPOTIFY |
|
| | Is Mathematics Mostly Chaos or Mostly Order?
Guest: Jordana Cepelewicz
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.
APPLE | SPOTIFY |
|
|
| | Singularities Are Hard to Kill
Guest: Charlie Wood
In general relativity, "singularities" are presented as mathematical anomalies where Einstein's equations break down. For decades, the hope has been that quantum physics would correct these aberrations. What happens if that's not the case?
APPLE | SPOTIFY |
|
| | When ChatGPT Broke an Entire Field
Guest: John Pavlus
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.
APPLE | SPOTIFY |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | | | Mathematician Steven Strogatz and astrophysicist Janna Levin returned for a fourth season of interviews with leading researchers. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | Why Did The Universe Begin?
Guest: Thomas Hertog
Hertog discusses his collaboration with Stephen Hawking on a provocative theory arguing that the laws of physics evolved with the universe, and how this could have shaped a cosmos fit for life.
APPLE | SPOTIFY |
|
| | How Did Multicellular Life Evolve?
Guest: Will Ratcliff
One of the most important events in the history of life on Earth was the emergence of multicellularity. Ratcliff discusses how his snowflake yeast models provide insight into what drove the transition from single-celled to multicellular organisms.
APPLE | SPOTIFY |
|
|
| | What Is the True Promise of Quantum Computing?
Guest: Ewin Tang
It's surprisingly challenging to find quantum algorithms that outperform classical ones. Tang discusses her pioneering work in "dequantizing" quantum algorithms..
APPLE | SPOTIFY |
|
| | Do Beautiful Birds Have an Evolutionary Advantage?
Guest: Richard Prum
Why did feathers evolve? There's much more to their backstory than their functionality for flight. Prum explains why he thinks feathers and vibrant traits in birds evolved not solely for survival, but also through aesthetic choice.
APPLE | SPOTIFY |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | | |
|
|
|
| |
|
