The Quanta Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The Math of Democracy Never Quite Works Out Nov 03, 2026

Show notes

The French mathematician Nicolas de Condorcet was a passionate believer in democracy, but he also discovered a frustrating paradox within it: A majority can sometimes vote itself into a logical loop. Mathematicians have now found that this “logical loop” maps onto a strange topological shape: the Klein bottle, a surface with no distinct inside or outside.

On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks with writer Alex Stone about this new connection between this centuries-old voting paradox and the Klein bottle — and how it illustrates just how difficult it is to translate a group of individual preferences into a single choice.

This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.

Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor-in-chief Samir Patel and Senior Editor Hannah Waters speak with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.

Malaria Parasite Caught in the Act of Breaking and Entering Oct 27, 2026

Show notes

To invade red blood cells, malaria parasites create a temporary molecular portal that lets them slip into the cell — and then the door disappears behind it, gone in 60 seconds. Researchers have finally detailed the proteins that let it break in without tripping the alarms.

On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks with writer Joanna Thompson about these new images of Plasmodium’s moment of invasion — and what this breakthrough could mean for the next generation of malaria treatments and drug discovery for other parasitic diseases.

This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.

Audio Edition: The Quietest Mathematician Has Always Been Worth Listening To Oct 22, 2026

Show notes

John Pardon sees connections between different areas of math that others don’t. For that vision, he’s now been awarded a Fields Medal.
The article The Quietest Mathematician Has Always Been Worth Listening To first appeared on Quanta Magazine.

'Ghostly' Galaxies and the Mystery of Dark Matter Oct 20, 2026

Show notes

In 2018, using the Keck Observatory in Hawaiʻi, astronomers discovered the first known dark matter-deficient galaxy, DF2. It’s about the same size as the Milky Way, but way dimmer, with 200 times fewer stars. Since then, two more phantom galaxies (DF4 and DF9) have been spotted. All three of these strange galaxies exist along a line. Why?

On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks with writer Robin George Andrews about this triplet of ‘ghostly’ galaxies and what they can tell us about the mystery of dark matter.

This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.

How Math Brings Together Classical Chaos, Quantum Mechanics, and Fractals Oct 13, 2026

Show notes

The uncertainty principle tells us that the more you know about where a quantum particle is, the less you can know about how fast it’s moving, and vice versa. In 2023, graduate student Alex Cohen stunned the math world when he posted a proof of the fractal uncertainty principle. The math, which combines chaos, quantum theory, and infinitely complex fractal structures, has been called a “foundational result.”

On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks with writer Shalma Wegsman on this incredible breakthrough and how this principle has revealed a new deep way that quantum particles differ from classical ones.

This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.

Audio Edition: Sometimes Being First Means Seeing the End Before Anyone Else Oct 08, 2026

Show notes

Determination and effort propelled Jacob Tsimerman to the top of the math world. But now that he’s won a Fields Medal, he worries that the field is in jeopardy.

The article Sometimes Being First Means Seeing the End Before Anyone Else first appeared on Quanta Magazine.

Sea Monkeys, Jupiter, and the Mystery of Turbulence Oct 06, 2026

Show notes

Turbulence is all around us: bumping our planes, roiling our rivers, swirling milk into our coffee. These systems quickly become extremely chaotic and complex. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks with contributing writer Stephen Ornes about a recent study that used sea monkeys to complicate one of turbulence’s many mysteries. This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.

Each week on The Quanta Podcast, hear the people behind the award-winning publication navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.

We've been nominated for a few Signal Awards, including Best Science Show, Best Host, and Best Show Artwork! Visit the links below to vote for us:
https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2026/shows/genre/science
https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2026/shows/craft/best-show-artwork
https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2026/shows/craft/best-host

‘Jumping Genes’ Are More Than Parasitic DNA Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

You might imagine that the DNA in your cells has a simple history. But that’s not the entire story. Nearly half of your genome is a wild drama, thanks to a genetic material called transposons that can clip itself out of the DNA sequence, float off, and paste itself somewhere else. While these “jumping genes” may seem pathological, they’re more than just junk.

On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Hannah Waters speaks with writer Jake Buehler about these unruly genetic fragments and their connections to the evolution of everything from moths to wombs.

This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.

The audio coda this week is a piece of music called Transposon. It's a musical sonification of transposable elements from the human genome by composer and sound artist Sam Nester. He created it in collaboration with genomicist Stéphane Boissinot as part of a year-long artist-in-residence at the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology at NYU Abu Dhabi.

Audio Edition: For Hong Wang, Living Fully in the Math World Means Threading the Needle Sep 24, 2026

Show notes

Focus, commitment, and insight resulted in a “once in a century” proof. Hong Wang is now just the third woman to win a Fields Medal.

The article Living Fully in the Math World Means Threading the Needle first appeared on Quanta Magazine.

Are the Little Red Dots Actually Black Hole Suns? Sep 22, 2026

Show notes

When all you can see is a speck, it’s hard to tell what you’re looking at. Astronomers first argued that little red dots spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2022 were distant galaxies on the cosmic horizon, mainly because of their brightness. Later, they concluded that little red dots look more like the supermassive black holes that sit at the heart of most galaxies. But in the spring of 2025, two teams of astronomers simultaneously announced observations of a pair of little red dots that were unlike all the rest. In fact, they were unlike any object ever seen.

On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks with writer Charlie Wood to talk about the new celestial body that may have just dropped, what some astronomers are calling “black hole stars.”This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.

This week's coda is a sonification of data from a device known as the NIRSpec integral field unit on NASA's Webb telescope. Here, the pitch of the sound represents the velocity of hydrogen gas moving around the black hole. The higher the pitch, the faster it is moving toward the telescope. This data enabled the first direct mass measurement of a black hole from the first billion years of the universe.
Coda Credit - Sonification: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Christopher Britt (STScI), Ralf Crawford (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Margaret Carruthers (STScI); Science: Ignas Juodžbalis (Cambridge), Cosimo Marconcini (University of Florence), Roberto Maiolino (Cambridge), Francesco D'Eugenio (Cambridge), Hannah Übler (MPE)

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