The Quanta Podcast
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.)
- Update frequency
- every 11 days
- Average duration
- 19 minutes
- Episodes
- 286
- Years Active
- 2015 - 2025
In Computers, Memory Is More Useful Than Time
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 Pod…
00:19:17 |
Tue 03 Jun 2025
Math and Beauty in the Age of AI
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-C…
00:20:46 |
Tue 27 May 2025
Audio Edition: Can AI Models Show Us How People Learn? Impossible Languages Point a Way.
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…
00:18:44 |
Thu 22 May 2025
AI Is Nothing Like a Brain, and That’s OK
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 …
00:18:49 |
Tue 20 May 2025
Introducing The Quanta Podcast
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, in…
00:12:24 |
Tue 13 May 2025
Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold
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 Comp…
00:19:09 |
Thu 08 May 2025
Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too?
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…
00:15:59 |
Thu 24 Apr 2025
Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound
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 Deligh…
00:17:23 |
Thu 10 Apr 2025
It Might Be Possible to Detect Gravitons After All
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 Dete…
00:20:29 |
Thu 27 Mar 2025
How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangeness of Zero
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 Strangene…
00:17:20 |
Wed 05 Mar 2025
The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology
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…
00:24:10 |
Wed 19 Feb 2025
The Cellular Secret to Resisting the Pressure of the Deep Sea
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…
00:20:08 |
Wed 05 Feb 2025
Computer Scientists Prove That Heat Destroys Quantum Entanglement
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 appear…
00:13:17 |
Wed 22 Jan 2025
Physicists Pinpoint the Quantum Origin of the Greenhouse Effect
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…
00:15:04 |
Wed 15 Jan 2025
What Happens in a Mind That Can't 'See' Mental Images
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 po…
00:20:35 |
Wed 11 Dec 2024
What Could Explain the Gallium Anomaly?
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 …
00:14:00 |
Tue 26 Nov 2024
Cryptographers Discover a New Foundation for Quantum Secrecy
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 Mag…
00:20:11 |
Wed 13 Nov 2024
Electric 'Ripples' in the Resting Brain Tag Memories for Storage
New experiments reveal how the brain chooses which memories to save and add credence to advice about the importance of rest.
00:19:08 |
Wed 30 Oct 2024
AI Starts to Sift Through String Theory's Near-Endless Possibilities
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.
00:25:13 |
Wed 16 Oct 2024
Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness, Experts Declare
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 consci…
00:18:09 |
Wed 02 Oct 2024
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