Episode notes
What links a Möbius strip, brain folds and termite mounds? The answer is Harvard University’s L. Mahadevan, whose career has been devoted to using mathematics and physics to explore the form and function of common phenomena. Mahadevan, or Maha to his friends and colleagues, has long been fascinated by questions one wouldn’t normally ask — from the equilibrium shape of inert objects like a Möbius strip, to the complex factors that drive biological systems like morphogenesis or social insect colonies. In this episode of The Joy of Why, Mahadevan tells co-host Steven Strogatz what inspires him…
Podcast
The Joy of Why
Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine · Tech & Science · 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…
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S4 · E11 · 7 Aug 2025 · 40 min
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S4 · E10 · 24 Jul 2025 · 52 min
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S4 · E9 · 10 Jul 2025 · 45 min
How Can Regional Models Advance Climate Science?
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S4 · E8 · 26 Jun 2025 · 34 min
How Does Graph Theory Shape Our World?
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S4 · E6 · 29 May 2025 · 49 min
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S4 · E5 · 15 May 2025 · 46 min
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Geometry is one of the oldest disciplines in human history, yet the worlds it can describe extend far beyond its original use. What began thousands of years ago as a way to measure land and build pyramids was given rigor by Euclid in ancient Greece, became applied to curves and surfaces in the 19th century, and eventually helped Einstein understand the universe. Yang-Hui He sees geometry as a unifying language for modern physics, a mutual exchange in which each discipline can influence and shape the other. In the latest episode of The Joy of Why, He tells co-host Steven Strogatz how geometry…
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S4 · E4 · 1 May 2025 · 42 min
Will AI Ever Understand Language Like Humans?
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S4 · E3 · 17 Apr 2025 · 43 min
Can Quantum Gravity Be Created in the Lab?
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S4 · E2 · 3 Apr 2025 · 39 min
What Is the True Promise of Quantum Computing?
Quantum computing promises unprecedented speed, but in practice, it’s proven remarkably difficult to find important questions that quantum machines can solve faster than classical ones. One of the most notable demonstrations of this came from Ewin Tang who rose to prominence in the field as a teenager. When quantum algorithms had in principle cracked the so-called recommendation problem, Tang designed classical algorithms that could match them . So began the approach of “dequantizing,” in which computer scientists look at quantum algorithms and try to achieve the same speeds with classical…
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