The Quanta Podcast

The quest to make mathematics rigorous has a long and spotty history — one mathematicians can learn from as they push to formalize everything in the computer program Lean.

Columnist Natalie Wolchover examines the latest developments in the “forever war” over whether string theory can describe the world.

Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard were recognized for their foundational work in quantum information science.

The last decade has seen vast improvements in humanoid robots, but graduating to widespread use might require going back to the fundamentals.

Every second, hundreds to thousands of molecules move through thousands of nuclear pores in each of your cells. A new high-definition view reveals the machine in action.

In an 1874 paper, Georg Cantor proved that there are different sizes of infinity and changed math forever. A trove of newly unearthed letters shows that it was also an act of plagiarism.

Columnist Philip Ball thinks the phenomenon of decoherence might finally bridge the quantum-classical divide.

Today’s observatories document every pulse and flash in the sky each night. To understand how the cosmos has changed over longer periods, scientists rely on a more tactile technology.

New experiments reveal how astrocytes tune neuronal activity to modulate our mental and emotional states. The results suggest that neuron-only brain models, such as connectomes, leave out a crucial layer of regulation.