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Audio Edition: How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics
Season 1 Episode 11
Emmy Noether showed that fundamental physical laws are just a consequence of simple symmetries. A century later, her insights continue to shape physi…
6 months, 1 week ago
How Amateurs Solved a Major Computer Science Puzzle
Season 1 Episode 10
The Busy Beaver Challenge, an open online collaboration, started in 2022 to finally solve a major problem in theoretical computer science. Over time,…
6 months, 1 week ago
The Mysterious Math of Turbulence
Season 1 Episode 9
Turbulence is a notoriously difficult phenomenon to study. Mathematicians are now starting to untangle it at its smallest scales.
This is the sixth ep…
6 months, 2 weeks ago
Audio Edition: Concept Cells Help Your Brain Abstract Information and Build Memories
Season 1 Episode 8
Individual cells in the brain light up for specific ideas. These concept neurons, once known as “Jennifer Aniston cells,” help us think, imagine and …
6 months, 3 weeks ago
Birds' Migratory Mitochondria
Season 1 Episode 7
Changes in the number, shape, efficiency and interconnectedness of organelles in the cells of flight muscles provide extra energy for birds’ continen…
6 months, 3 weeks ago
Singularities Are Hard to Kill
Season 1 Episode 6
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 …
7 months ago
Audio Edition: Heat Destroys All Order. Except for in This One Special Case.
Season 1 Episode 5
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 …
7 months, 1 week ago
In Computers, Memory Is More Useful Than Time
Season 1 Episode 4
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…
7 months, 1 week ago
Math and Beauty in the Age of AI
Season 1 Episode 3
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 Quant…
7 months, 2 weeks ago
Audio Edition: Can AI Models Show Us How People Learn? Impossible Languages Point a Way.
Season 1 Episode 2
Certain grammatical rules never appear in any known language. By constructing artificial languages that have these rules, linguists can use neural ne…
7 months, 3 weeks ago