The Joy of Why

Interviews on scientific and mathematical questions of our time AI summary

Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine Visit website › Science · EN · 79 episodes · latest 2026-11-12

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What it is about

“The Joy of Why” is a Quanta Magazine podcast about curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge. The mathematician and author Steven Strogatz and the cosmologist and author Janna Levin take turns interviewing leading researchers about the great scientific and mathematical questions of our time. New episodes are released every other Wednesday. Quanta Magazine is a Pulitzer Prize–winning, editorially independent online publication launched and supported by the Simons Foundation to illuminate big ideas in science and math through public service journalism. Quanta’s reporters and editors focus on developments in mathematics, theoretical physics, theoretical computer science and the basic life sciences, emphasizing timely, accurate, in-depth and well-crafted articles for its broad discerning audience. In 2023, Steven Strogatz received a National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communications partly for his work on “The Joy of Why.”

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Latest episodes

Can Network Science Transform Health and Nutrition?

2026-11-12 · 51 min · Season 5, episode 12

Nothing really exists in isolation. Almost every part of our lives exists in a network. Consciousness arises from what neurons do together, life from what genes and proteins do together, society from what we do…
How Do You Take a Picture of a Black Hole?

2026-10-29 · 1 hr 0 min · Season 5, episode 11

Black holes are one of the universe’s most exotic and elusive objects. When nothing, not even light, can escape their powerful gravitational grasp, taking a picture of one seems unimaginable. But an image of a black…
How Do Fungi Keep the Planet Healthy?

2026-10-15 · 57 min · Season 5, episode 10

People may think of soil as just dirt, but it is anything but inert. Beneath your feet, a vast network of mycorrhizal fungi is hard at work, trading minerals with plant roots. This trading system helps enrich the soil,…
What Does the Fourth Dimension Actually Look Like?

2026-10-01 · 53 min · Season 5, episode 9

We know all about how things exist in the three dimensions of length, width, and height. Physicists often talk about time as a fourth dimension, but what if there were a fourth spatial dimension — another direction…
Where Does the Quantum World End and Ours Begin?

2026-09-17 · 47 min

Quantum mechanics may be one of the most precisely tested paradigms in science, but there’s still no universally accepted interpretation of what it tells us about reality. How do we get from the wave-like behavior of…
Live from ICM 2026: What Is Math For in the Age of AI?

2026-09-03 · 53 min

Mathematicians are witnessing a profound shift in their field. AI systems are now producing proofs, spotting connections between distant fields, and, in a few cases, solving problems that had stumped mathematicians for…
Are We Thinking Correctly about AI Intelligence?

2026-08-20 · 52 min

When an LLM answers a question, is it reasoning like humans, or just producing text that looks like reasoning? The distinction isn’t just philosophical, this determines what we can trust AI to do, how closely we need to…
How Does Touch Lead To Pain Or Pleasure?

2026-08-06 · 55 min

Pain and pleasure seem like simple facts of life, but they are far from it. Neuroscientists still cannot say why physical pain differs from psychological pain, for instance, nor why a loved one’s touch soothes while a…
How Fast Is the Universe Really Expanding?

2026-07-23 · 1 hr 5 min

One of the biggest mysteries in cosmology seems to keep getting bigger. Astronomers have known since the 1930s that the universe is expanding, but in the 1990s, the discovery that this expansion is accelerating rather…
Will We Ever Find Alien Civilizations?

2026-07-09 · 54 min

Does intelligent life exist elsewhere in the universe? The question has captivated us for centuries, but despite decades of searching it remains frustratingly unanswered. Every so often a curious signal appears —…

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Publisher details

Owner: Quanta Magazine
Oldest episode in feed: 03/2022 · over 4 years
Typical length: 39 min
Format: Episodic Newest first, episodes stand alone

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