Echoes of Electromagnetism Found in Numb...

There’s no scientific consensus about what makes living things so different from inorganic material. Some scientists cite replication or metabolism. Others have another answer: Living organisms are different because they do stuff — for reasons. On this episode of The Quanta Podca ... Show More

You’re carrying around in your head a model of how the world works. Will AI systems need to do the same?The article ‘World Models,’ an Old Idea in AI, Mount a Comeback first appeared on Quanta Magazine. 

In 1992, mathematicians Dave Bayer and Persi Diaconis proved that seven riffle shuffles are enough to shuffle a deck of cards — but only if you can cut your deck with precision. Decades later, a new proof has finally extended the finding to less precise cuts. On this episode of T ... Show More

Daniel and Katie bushwack their way between theories of gravity and electromagnetism, looking for the elusive connection.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

Magnets are inside loads of everyday electronic kit - speakers, motors, phones and more - but listener Lucas is mystified. What, he wonders, is a magnetic field?Our sleuths set out to investigate the mysterious power of magnets, with the help of wizard physicist Dr Felix Flicker, ... Show More

Music generated by quantum computers is intriguing from musical and scientific perspectives 

There is a bizarre number in maths referred to simply as ‘i’. It appears to break the rules of arithmetic - but turns out to be utterly essential for applications across engineering and physics. We’re talking about the square root of -1. WHICH MAKES NO SENSE.Professor Fry waxes l ... Show More

<p>Whether it's Art Garfunkel's mathematics degree or the structure of the chromatic scale, it's easy to correlate music and math. But why are so many musical minds also well suited for number crunching? Tune in to learn more about music and math.</p><p> </p> Learn more about you ... Show More

Daniel and Jorge talk about super complex numbers and how they might hold the secrets of the Universe. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

There is a bizarre number in maths referred to simply as ‘i’. It appears to break the rules of arithmetic - but turns out to be utterly essential for applications across engineering and physics. We are talking about the square root of -1, which makes no sense.Professor Fry waxes ... Show More

Hear how a recent discovery of the motions of galaxies is changing how cosmologists are thinking about our universe.For ad free episodes and other exclusives, join us for just $3 a month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/whythisuniverseOur merch is available here: https://www.shalm ... Show More