Season 2016

1. Leslie Valiant: Searching for the Algorithms Underlying Life

2016-01-29

Leslie Valiant explains the term "ecorithm."

2. Are We Alone in the Universe?

2016-02-04

David Kaplan explores the best ways to search for alien life on distant planets.

3. Michael Atiyah's Imaginative State of Mind

2016-03-04

Michael Atiyah discusses beauty in mathematics.

4. David Deamer: How We’re Studying the Origins of Life

2016-03-17

David Deamer explains how his laboratory mimics the extreme conditions found on volcanoes in the early Earth.

5. Is That 'Bump' a New Particle?

2016-04-14

David Kaplan explains how a curious signal in the Large Hadron Collider's latest data could upset the Standard Model of physics — or mean nothing at all.

6. Tiny Tests Seek the Universe's Big Mysteries

2016-05-04

David Moore explains why we might expect to find strange things when we study gravity at small scales.

7. David Moore: Tabletop Physics

2016-05-05

Stanford University physicist David Moore explains how his team’s tabletop experiment uses lasers and tiny glass spheres to test gravity.

8. Janna Levin on Science and Culture

2016-05-06

Janna Levin talks about her roles as scientific director at a “center for art and innovation” in Brooklyn and as a physicist and writer.

9. Ken Ono: A Life Inspired by an Unexpected Genius

2016-05-23

Ken Ono explains how Ramanujan has served as his “guardian angel” throughout his life and career.

10. Suchitra Sebastian: An Explorer of Quantum Borderlands

2016-06-10

Suchitra Sebastian talks about how extreme conditions can create unexpected quantum behavior.

11. How Does Life Come From Randomness?

2016-06-30

David Kaplan explains how the law of increasing entropy could drive random bits of matter into the stable, orderly structures of life.

12. Miranda Cheng: A Moonshine Master Toys with String Theory

2016-08-04

Miranda Cheng explains what umbral moonshine is and how it might illuminate string theory.

13. Tracy Slatyer: A Seeker of Dark Matter’s Hidden Light

2016-09-01

Tracy Slatyer explains why she’s not disappointed when a mysterious cosmic signal turns out to be something other than dark matter.

14. Peter and Rosemary Grant

2016-09-22

Peter and Rosemary Grant explain how our understanding of evolution has changed in their lifetimes.

15. Pencils Down: The Art of Teaching Math and Science

2016-10-11

What can we learn from the best teachers on the front lines? To shine a spotlight on this linchpin of our education system, Quanta Magazine followed four master science and math teachers into their classrooms.

16. Pencils Down: Channa Comer of Baychester Middle School

2016-10-11

Channa Comer teaches 6th-grade science. She focuses on engagement so kids will want to keep learning.

17. Pencils Down: Mike Zitolo of School of the Future

2016-10-11

Michael Zitolo is turning the way science is approached in the classroom upside down.

18. Pencils Down: Soni Midha of East Side Community High School

2016-10-11

In school or in life, Soni Midha wants her math students to be able to prove why something is correct.

19. Pencils Down: Aaron Mathieu of Acton-Boxborough Regional High School

2016-10-11

Students need a chance to fail at science to learn about its process, says Aaron Mathieu.

20. Pencils Down: Channa Comer Teaching About Scientific Controls

2016-10-11

What's a control? Channa Comer challenges her students to explain and work things out for themselves.

21. Helen Quinn: A Wormhole Between Physics and Education

2016-10-18

A Wormhole Between Physics and Education

22. Michael Costanzo: Giant Genetic Map Reveals Life’s Hidden Links

2016-10-26

Michael Costanzo, a biologist at the University of Toronto and a lead author on the new study, explains why it’s important to understand how genes interact.

23. Richard Lenski: A Conductor of Evolution’s Subtle Symphony

2016-11-03

Richard Lenski discusses how he has been surprised by evolution.

24. Cynthia Dwork: How to Force Our Machines to Play Fair

2016-11-23

Cynthia Dwork explains how to conduct a survey that asks people if they do embarrassing — or even illicit — things.

25. Erik Verlinde: The Case Against Dark Matter

2016-11-29

Erik Verlinde describes how emergent gravity and dark energy can explain away dark matter.

26. Janet Conrad: On a Hunt for a Ghost of a Particle

2016-12-08

Janet Conrad explains how sterile neutrinos might help physicists move past the Standard Model.

27. Elena Aprile: In the Deep, a Drive to Find Dark Matter

2016-12-20

Elena Aprile explains how she hunts for dark matter in the world’s largest underground laboratory.