Podcast · 13 episodes
The Joy of Why
by Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine · English
“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.”
Latest episodes
Where Does the Quantum World End and Ours Begin?Foundations of quantum mechanics—why the quantum world (superposition, interference) doesn’t obviously map onto everyday classical reality, and how to interpret “collapse” and “observers” without…17 Sep 2026 · 47 min
Live from ICM 2026: What Is Math For in the Age of AI?Live from ICM 2026, “The Joy of Why” panel on what math is for in the age of AI—how AI affects proof generation/verification, mathematical education, and what mathematicians value (understanding,…3 Sep 2026 · 53 min
Are We Thinking Correctly about AI Intelligence?How to evaluate “AI intelligence” and whether today’s models show understanding, using developmental and comparative psychology ideas plus experimental-method principles (control experiments,…20 Aug 2026 · 52 min
All episodes
Where Does the Quantum World End and Ours Begin?Foundations of quantum mechanics—why the quantum world (superposition, interference) doesn’t obviously map onto everyday classical reality, and how to interpret “collapse” and “observers” without…17 Sep 2026 · 47 min · 14 chapters
Live from ICM 2026: What Is Math For in the Age of AI?Live from ICM 2026, “The Joy of Why” panel on what math is for in the age of AI—how AI affects proof generation/verification, mathematical education, and what mathematicians value (understanding,…3 Sep 2026 · 53 min · 26 chapters
Are We Thinking Correctly about AI Intelligence?How to evaluate “AI intelligence” and whether today’s models show understanding, using developmental and comparative psychology ideas plus experimental-method principles (control experiments,…20 Aug 2026 · 52 min · 21 chapters
How Does Touch Lead To Pain Or Pleasure?How skin touch becomes either pain or pleasure, including the skin-brain pathways, molecular receptors, and how context/emotion gates touch valence.6 Aug 2026 · 55 min · 26 chapters
How Fast Is the Universe Really Expanding?How astronomers measure cosmic expansion and why observations suggest it’s accelerating; then how the Lambda-CDM “standard model” fits many data yet faces tensions like the “Hubble tension.”23 Jul 2026 · 1 h 5 min · 21 chapters
Will We Ever Find Alien Civilizations?The probability of alien life and intelligent civilizations, using statistical versions of the Drake equation (especially a “birth–death” model), and how that affects expectations for SETI and UFO…9 Jul 2026 · 54 min · 25 chapters
What Is the Positive Grassmannian and Why Does It Show Up Everywhere?The episode explains the positive Grassmannian, a geometric object related to “totally positive” matrices, and why it unexpectedly connects to counting in algebraic combinatorics, probability models…25 Jun 2026 · 52 min · 23 chapters
What’s the Future of Gene Editing?The future of gene editing, centered on CRISPR—how bacteria’s RNA-guided “adaptive immune” system works, how it became programmable CRISPR-Cas9 editing, and what’s next for therapies, ethics, and…11 Jun 2026 · 51 min · 18 chapters
More Conversations, Complex Questions, and Bold Ideas in Season Five of ‘The Joy of Why’Season five of The Joy of Why is previewed, promising conversations that tackle complex scientific questions with bold ideas.4 Jun 2026 · 1 min · 2 chapters
Do Beautiful Birds Have an Evolutionary Advantage?Whether birds’ beauty and diversity reflect an evolutionary advantage, focusing on birds as living dinosaurs, the origin of feathers, and “aesthetic” (sexual/social) selection distinct from…21 Aug 2025 · 46 min · 19 chapters
How Can Math Protect Our Data?How math protects digital data from “noise” (bit flips, erasures, synchronization errors) using error-correcting codes, plus modern applications (distributed cloud storage repair, quantum error…7 Aug 2025 · 40 min · 13 chapters
Why Did The Universe Begin?The episode debates “why did the universe begin?” by contrasting traditional Big Bang “origin” questions with a quantum-cosmology approach in which time and even physical laws may not exist in their…24 Jul 2025 · 52 min · 19 chapters
How Can Regional Models Advance Climate Science?How regional climate models improve climate prediction and connect climate change to regional impacts on water, agriculture, and disease; includes Nile teleconnections, model methods (PDE-based…10 Jul 2025 · 45 min · 23 chapters