The Quanta Podcast

Particle physics hasn't yet found the new physics needed to resolve its deepest mysteries. It’s hard to know what to think about or look for. But the most devoted particle physicists are thinking and looking all the same. On this episode, host Samir Patel and columnist Natalie Wolchover discuss the first of our new series of curiosity-driven essays, Qualia, where Natalie asks particle physicists whether the field is facing a profound crisis. 
This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine. Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.
Audio Coda provided by UCL High Energy Physics.

Reversible programs run backward as easily as they run forward, saving energy in theory. After decades of research, they may soon power AI.
The story How Can AI Researchers Save Energy? By Going Backward first appeared on Quanta Magazine.

We already know that what we eat, drink, and inhale can affect which parts of our DNA are expressed, and which aren’t. But recent research poses a shocking idea: A dad’s habits may be encoded in molecules and transmitted to his future kids. On this episode, host Samir Patel and biology editor Hannah Waters dig into the new epigenetic mouse studies exploring whether sperm cells carry more than just genetic information. This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.  
Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.
Audio coda in this episode: Motivation and reward in learning - Produced by the Institute of Human Relations at Yale University, Published by Penn State University, Psychological Cinema Register [1948].

Imagine you’re holding two equal-size dice. Is it possible to bore a tunnel through one die that’s big enough for the other to slide through? It is — but what about other shapes? In a paper posted online in August, two researchers describe a shape with 90 vertices and 152 faces that they’ve named the Noperthedron, the first convex polyhedron that definitely cannot pass through itself. 
In this episode, Quanta contributor Erica Klarriech tells host Samir Patel about how the researchers discovered the shape, and how it solves a centuries-old geometric mystery. 
Audio coda courtesy of the Gemsmen Renaissance Consort.

Studies of neural metabolism reveal our brain’s effort to keep us alive and the evolutionary constraints that sculpted our most complex organ.
The story How Much Energy Does It Take To Think? first appeared on Quanta Magazine.