The Quanta Podcast

In math and science, knots do far more than keep shoes on feet. For more than a century, m... more

When pigeons outnumber pigeonholes, some birds must double up. This obvious statement — an... more

Every summer since 1983, scientists at Crater Lake National Park have gathered data about ... more

How do sellers decide how to price their goods? Competition should keep prices down, while... more

At first glance, studying the math of waves seems like it should be smooth sailing. But th... more

Salvador Dalí, Thomas Edison and Edgar Allan Poe all took inspiration from the state betwe... more

A powerful mathematical technique is used to model melting ice and other phenomena. But it... more

Recently, astrophysicists identified something peculiar: An enormous “naked” black hole wi... more

Thanks to a delicate interplay between plate tectonics and life, Earth’s thermostat has ke... more

A new proposal makes the case that paraparticles — a new category of quantum particle — co... more

Imagine a set of simple building blocks that can self-assemble into any shape you want. Th... more

Around 6,000 years ago, the Sahara was a lush grassland. Then, as if a switch flipped, it ... more

It’s been difficult to find important questions that quantum computers can answer faster t... more

“Memory” means many things to many people, and in many fields. We tend to understand memor... more

The climate is changing. So is the way we understand the climate. On this week's episode, ... more

Rare and powerful compounds, known as keystone molecules, can build a web of invisible int... more

In order to trust machines with important jobs, we need a high level of confidence that th... more

For most of us, the word “climate” immediately generates thoughts of melting ice, rising s... more

The deceptively simple Kakeya conjecture has bedeviled mathematicians for 50 years. A new ... more

In the field of harmonic analysis, there’s a constellation of questions about how the ener... more

In science textbooks, Earth looks like a round layer cake. There's a hard line between the... more

Astronomers are ready to search for the fingerprints of life in faraway planetary atmosphe... more

We’re living in the golden age of cryptography. Since the 1970s, we've had more confidence... more

How many oranges can you fit in a box? Mathematicians are obsessed with perfecting their a... more

A young computer scientist and two colleagues show that searches within data structures ca... more

As far as we know, quantum mechanics is a universal theory that explains matter and light ... more