Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

Steven Strogatz possesses a special ability to see into the unseen. How does he do it? Steve is a world class mathematician, who sees through the window of math. But, lucky for us, he’s also a world class communicator. An award-winning professor, researcher, author, and creative thinker, Steve can help anyone (even Alan Alda) understand some of the unseen world of numbers. In this episode, Alan and Steven start from zero, not the number, but from a place of not knowing anything. He emerges from the darkness for a moment as Steve actually gets Alan to understand something that’s always mystified him. Steven's latest book, "Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe," is now available online and at all major book sellers.

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How do we get beyond Right versus Left, "Us" versus "Them," and even "Me" versus "You"? Jonathan Haidt has a few theories about this all too-familiar tribalism and the seemingly endless culture wars of our time. As someone who studies morality and emotion, Jonathan has deep insight into the moral foundation of our politics and his research in moral psychology has revealed new ways for us to engage in more civil forms of politics, which can help make us all more cooperative and decent. In this conversation, Alan Alda talks with Jonathan about what makes us happy and how we can overcome our natural tendency toward self-righteousness, in order to respect and learn from those whose morality (and politics) differs from our own.

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How do we actually learn to communicate? How is it different from how other animals learn it? Michael Tomasello explores what may be at the very heart of relating and communicating: shared attention. Alan Alda first met Michael when he interviewed him a few years ago in Leipzig, Germany. Michael was already doing experiments that studied the differences between how human children and chimps learn to communicate. He’s tracked the fascinating path humans take in learning to connect with one another – and we can learn a lot from it. Michael Tomasello heads up the world renowned Tomasello Lab at Duke University. His latest book, “Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny” offers a radical reconsideration of how we develop the qualities that make us human, based on Michael’s decades of cutting-edge experimental work when he was the head of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

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Sarah Vowell is not short on facets. She’s writer, a historian, a satirist, a radio star and an actor. While he writing voice can be satirical, you might recognize her speaking voice as that of Violet in the Pixar animated series “The Incredibles.” She's a contributor to the public radio show This American Life, and has written seven New York Times’ bestselling books on culture and American history — all from a number of strange and interesting angles. In this conversation, Alan Alda and Sarah explore writing for different kinds of audiences— and her irresistible attraction to verbal shenanigans.

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Sherry Turkle is an expert on both our cultural and personal well-being. She's a professor at MIT, an author, a licensed clinical psychologist, and someone who's deeply concerned about how people connect and communicate. In this conversation with Alan Alda, Sherry shares her concerns about mobile technology, social networks, AI, and robots. She explores our relationships with our devices and how our constant connectedness isn't always the best thing for us -- and what we can do to disconnect from our technology to reconnect with our humanity.

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Stephen Fry loves words. But he does more than love them. He puts them together in ways that so delight readers, that a blog or a tweet by him can get hundreds of thousands of people hanging on his every keystroke. As an actor, he’s brought to life every kind of theatrical writing from sketch comedy to classics. He’s performed in everything from game shows to the British audiobook version of Harry Potter. And always with a rich intelligence and searching eye. In this conversation with Alan Alda, Stephen explores how myths — sometimes very ancient ones — help us understand and, even guide, our modern selves.

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Her name is Ruth Westheimer, but we all know her as Dr. Ruth, the helpful lady who’s spoken to us for decades about sex. She's always direct, to the point, and bubbling with insight about ourselves and our partners. In this frank conversation with Alan Alda, Dr. Ruth talks about how to achieve a long lasting relationship in a short term world. She also talks candidly about her past experience as a sniper, and shares her thoughts on sex and relationships as we age.

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M*A*S*H is the most beloved and one of the most watched TV shows of all time. It set viewing records that have never been broken and is ranked as one of the top 25 shows of all time. In this exclusive podcast, actors from this legendary show gather together for an uproarious and totally candid conversation about how they learned to connect with one another to create their special brand of entertainment on the screen and lifelong friendships off-camera. Join Alan Alda (“Capt.Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce”),Loretta Swit (“Maj. Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan”),Jamie Farr (“Sgt. Maxwell Q. "Max" Klinger),Mike Farrell (Capt. B. J. Hunnicutt), and Gary Burghoff (Cpl. Walter "Radar" O'Reilly) for this intimate gathering of your M*A*S*H pals. The gang invites you to share in the memories and the laughter. Mostly the laughter — after all this is the 4077th. This episode is sponsored by the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, please visit aldacenter.org/vivid for more details.

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Sheila Nevins has explored the human condition in the thousand or so documentaries she produced for HBO. From more than 30 years of telling us stories about ourselves, to her experience as a woman in the workplace, Sheila has plenty to say about communicating. And she never holds back. In this delightful episode, Alan Alda talks with Sheila about her life, how she feels about aging, the #MeToo movement, sex, divorce, documentaries, storytelling, and just about everything else! This episode is sponsored by Calm. Check out www.calm.com/alda for more details.

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Coming Tuesday, February 5th! M*A*S*H will be back for a one-time, exclusive episode with all your familiar friends -- join Alan Alda, Loretta Swit, Jamie Farr, Mike Farrell, and Gary Burghoff for an intimate and candid conversation about their personal experiences of being part of one of the most beloved TV shows of all time; and the lessons they learned about how to connect, communicate, and to relate with one another in the process. Subscribe or listen for free at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. More details at AlanAlda.com

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