The Quanta Podcast

Two new notions of infinity challenge a long-standing plan to define the mathematical universe.

A new argument explores how the growth of disorder could cause massive objects to move toward one another. Physicists are both interested and skeptical.

Reversible programs run backward as easily as they run forward, saving energy in theory. After decades of research, they may soon power AI.

Black hole and Big Bang singularities break our best theory of gravity. A trilogy of theorems hints that physicists must go to the ends of space and time to find a fix.

One computer scientist’s “stunning” proof is the first progress in 50 years on one of the most famous questions in computer science.

Slight changes in the number, shape, efficiency and interconnectedness of organelles in the cells of flight muscles provide extra energy for birds’ continent-spanning feats.

Turbulence is a notoriously difficult phenomenon to study. Mathematicians are now starting to untangle it at its smallest scales.

Mathematicians have started to prepare for a profound shift in what it means to do math.

Researchers in “natural language processing” tried to tame human language. Then came the transformer.