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A New Quantum Math of Cryptography
Season 1 Episode 20
We’re living in the golden age of cryptography. Since the 1970s, we've had more confidence in encryption than ever before. But there's a difference b…
9 months, 2 weeks ago
How an Outsider Optimized Sphere-Packing
Season 1 Episode 19
How many oranges can you fit in a box? Mathematicians are obsessed with perfecting their answer to this question in not just our familiar three-dimen…
9 months, 3 weeks ago
Audio Edition: Undergraduate Upends a 40-Year-Old Data Science Conjecture
Season 1 Episode 18
A young computer scientist and two colleagues show that searches within data structures called hash tables can be much faster than previously deemed …
10 months ago
‘It’s a Mess’: A Brain-Bending Trip to Quantum Theory’s 100th Birthday Party
Season 1 Episode 17
As far as we know, quantum mechanics is a universal theory that explains matter and light more or less perfectly. It shows us why atoms don't collaps…
10 months ago
How Smell Guides Our Inner World
Season 1 Episode 17
When some people smell the molecule benzyl acetate, they identify a distinctly banana-y scent. But when others sniff the same compound, they get hint…
10 months, 1 week ago
Audio Edition: How ‘Event Scripts’ Structure Our Personal Memories
Season 1 Episode 16
By screening films in a brain scanner, neuroscientists discovered a rich library of neural scripts — from a trip through an airport to a marriage pro…
10 months, 2 weeks ago
When ChatGPT Broke an Entire Field
Season 1 Episode 16
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 a…
10 months, 2 weeks ago
Is Mathematics Mostly Chaos or Mostly Order?
Season 1 Episode 15
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 inf…
10 months, 3 weeks ago
Audio Edition: After 20 Years, Math Couple Solves Major Group Theory Problem
Season 1 Episode 14
Britta Späth has dedicated her career to proving a single, central conjecture. She’s finally succeeded, alongside her partner, Marc Cabanes.
The story…
10 months, 4 weeks ago
When Did Nature Burst Into Vivid Color?
Season 1 Episode 13
Colorful messages are constantly being exchanged across the natural world, to communicate everything from sexual attraction to self defense. But whic…
10 months, 4 weeks ago