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.

This is the fourth episode of The Quanta Podcast. In each episode, Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the minds behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.

Heat is supposed to ruin anything it touches. But physicists have shown that an idealized form of magnetism is heatproof.

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

This is the third episode of our new weekly series The Quanta Podcast, hosted by Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel. This week's guest is Ben Brubaker; he recently published "For Algorithms, a Little Memory Outweighs a Lot of Time.”

(If you've been a fan of Quanta Science Podcast, it will continue as 'audio edition episodes' in this same feed every other week.)

Historical Recording © Jack Copeland and Jason Long

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

This is the second episode of our new weekly series The Quanta Podcast, hosted by Quanta magazine Editor-in-Chief Samir Patel. This week's guest is Jordana Cepelewicz; she recently published "Mathematical Beauty, Truth and Proof in the Age of AI" for Quanta's AI special package.
(If you've been a fan of Quanta Science Podcast, it will continue as 'audio edition episodes' in this same feed every other week.)

Certain grammatical rules never appear in any known language. By constructing artificial languages that have these rules, linguists can use neural networks to explore how people learn.

The post Can AI Models Show Us How People Learn? Impossible Languages Point a Way first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The brain’s astounding cellular diversity and networked complexity could show how to make AI better.

This is the first episode of our new weekly series The Quanta Podcast, hosted by Quanta magazine Editor-in-Chief Samir Patel. This week's guest is Yasemin Saplakoglu; she recently published "AI Is Nothing Like a Brain, and That’s OK" for Quanta's AI special package.

(If you've been a fan of Quanta Science Podcast, it will continue as 'audio edition episodes' in this same feed every other week.)

The Quanta Podcast is your weekly dispatch from the frontiers of science and mathematics. In each episode, editor in chief Samir Patel will talk to the writers and editors behind our most popular, interesting and thought-provoking stories. 

The first episode of The Quanta Podcast will be live on May 20. In this trailer episode, Patel talks to executive editor Michael Moyer about what Quanta covers, how it has changed over time and our recent special series on “Science, Promise and Peril in the Age of AI.”

Join us every Tuesday for stimulating conversations and insights about the biggest ideas in basic science and mathematics.

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The post Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound first appeared on Quanta Magazine