The Quanta Podcast

Most mathematicians take the notion of infinity for granted — it’s deeply rooted in math’s most fundamental assumptions. But a small group of researchers hopes to banish infinity c...

In a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park, a microbe does something that life shouldn’t be able to do: It breathes oxygen and sulfur at the same time.The story The Cells That Br...

Together, Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard figured out how to use the laws of quantum physics to keep secret messages safe from eavesdroppers. Their efforts have earned them one...

Is string theory the one true “theory of everything?” Some physicists swear it’s a fundamental ingredient of nature. Others wish it would just go away. On this episode of The Quant...

For decades, mathematicians have struggled to understand matrices that reflect both order and randomness, like those that model semiconductors. A new method could change that.The s...

At the center of little holes in cell nuclei is a mystery. Here, clumps of proteins wiggle disordered tails around like seaweed. They drive a molecular machine that moves countless...

We tend to think of math as all about logic and rigor. But what “rigor” actually means has been shaken up quite a few times over the past few centuries. The newest attempt to forma...

Artificial intelligence software is designing novel experimental protocols that improve upon the work of human physicists, although the humans are still “doing a lot of baby-sittin...

Humanoid robots can run, crawl, and sort objects in flashy demos. So why can’t they reliably climb stairs or open doors? On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel spe...

To better understand our cosmos, some astronomers and astrophysicists go old school. Preserved beautifully on a hundred years of glass plate photographs are images of our night sky...

Image generators are designed to mimic their training data, so where does their apparent creativity come from? A recent study suggests that it’s an inevitable by-product of their a...

We tend to think of neurons as the sole engine of our thoughts, emotions, and everything in between.  For decades, a group of large brain cells called astrocytes have been thought ...