
Quanta Magazine
DocumentaryAnimation
Explore mind-bending developments in basic science and math research. Quanta Magazine is an award-winning, editorially independent magazine published by the Simons Foundation.
Language
EN
Status
Returning Series
Last Aired
December 23, 2022
Networks
YouTube
Where to Watch
Region US · Lang EN
US
No providers available for this region.
Seasons & Episodes
Select a season to view episodes. Reddit links may contain spoilers.
Season
E1
What Happens if You Fall Into a Black Hole?
Air date: 2015-06-10
David Kaplan explores one of the biggest mysteries in physics: the apparent contradiction between general relativity and quantum mechanics.
E2
Freeman Dyson: A ‘Rebel’ Without a Ph.D.
Air date: 2015-06-11
A wide-ranging interview with the legendary mathematical physicist Freeman Dyson in which he discusses his work with Richard Feynman, his attempts to build a spaceship propelled by nuclear bombs and his controversial views on climate change.
E3
Artur Avila: A Brazilian Wunderkind Who Calms Chaos
Air date: 2015-06-12
A video profile of the mathematician Artur Avila, whose solutions to ubiquitous problems in chaos theory have earned him Brazil’s first Fields Medal in 2014.
E4
Manjul Bhargava: The Musical, Magical Number Theorist
Air date: 2015-06-15
A video profile of the 2014 Fields medalist Manjul Bhargava, whose search for artistic truth and beauty has led to some of the most profound recent discoveries in number theory.
E5
Where Did the Universe Come From?
Air date: 2015-06-16
Where did the universe come from? David Kaplan explores the leading cosmological explanation with the help of a baking metaphor.
E6
Yitang Zhang: An Unlikely Math Star Rises
Air date: 2015-06-17
The opening scene from George Csicsery’s film "Counting From Infinity," about Yitang Zhang, a previously unknown mathematician who two years ago solved a major problem in number theory that catapulted him to mathematical stardom.
E7
Martin Hairer: In Noisy Equations, One Who Heard Music
Air date: 2015-06-19
A video profile of the 2014 Fields medalist Martin Hairer, whose epic masterpiece in stochastic analysis, experts say, “created a whole world.”
E8
Maryam Mirzakhani: A Tenacious Explorer of Abstract Surfaces
Air date: 2015-06-23
A video profile of the 2014 Fields medalist Maryam Mirzakhani, whose monumental work draws deep connections between topology, geometry and dynamical systems.
E9
Subhash Khot: A Grand Vision for the Impossible
Air date: 2015-06-24
A video profile of the 2014 Nevanlinna Prize winner Subhash Khot, whose bold conjecture is helping mathematicians explore the precise limits of computation.
E10
Alan Guth: How Many Two-Headed Cows in a Multiverse?
Air date: 2015-07-02
In an infinitely branching multiverse, says MIT cosmologist Alan Guth, “there are an infinite number of one-headed cows and an infinite number of two-headed cows. What happens to the ratio?”
E11
Hiranya Peiris: How to Test If We Live in a Multiverse
Air date: 2015-07-09
University College London physicist Hiranya Peiris explains the seemingly impossible -- how the multiverse can be experimentally tested.
E12
How Did Life Begin on Earth?
Air date: 2022-07-20
In this 2-minute video, David Kaplan explores the leading theories for the origin of life on our planet.
E13
Fly-Vac: Groundhog Day for Fruit Flies
Air date: 2015-07-21
Benjamin de Bivort’s lab at Harvard University developed a device called the fly-vac to study individual behavior. Upon entering a chamber, the fly must choose to walk toward the light or dark end. A vacuum then sucks it back to the starting point, and it makes the choice again.
E14
Why Do Flies Walk This Way?
Air date: 2015-07-22
In a device in Benjamin de Bivort’s lab at Harvard University, a fly wanders through a tiny Y-shaped maze, choosing at the Y’s vertex whether to walk left or right. This array of Y-mazes allows researchers to track individual behavior in many flies simultaneously.
E15
How Symmetry Shapes Nature’s Laws
Air date: 2015-08-17
In this 2-minute video, David Kaplan explains how the search for hidden symmetries leads to discoveries like the Higgs boson.
E16
James Bullock: The Case for Complex Dark Matter
Air date: 2015-08-25
James Bullock, a physicist at the University of California, Irvine, explains why dark matter might be more complicated than astronomers have assumed.
E17
Nancy Moran: An Explorer of Life’s Deepest Partnerships
Air date: 2015-09-18
Nancy Moran, a biologist at the University of Texas at Austin, explains how colony collapse disorder led her to study the bacteria that live in the guts of bees.
E18
Nima Arkani-Hamed's Visions of Future Physics
Air date: 2015-09-23
Nima Arkani-Hamed, a physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study, makes his "big-picture" case for building a 100-TeV particle collider.
E19
What Is a Species?
Air date: 2015-09-24
David Kaplan explains why a simple definition of 'species' is hard to come by in our fifth In Theory video.
E20
Gabriela González: Searching the Sky for the Wobbles of Gravity
Air date: 2015-10-23
Gabriela González explains how to measure black-hole collisions using gravitational waves.
E21
Joan Strassmann: The Woman Who Stared at Wasps
Air date: 2015-11-06
Joan Strassmann explains the benefits of studying social amoebas.
E22
Christoph Adami: The Information Theory of Life
Air date: 2015-11-20
Christoph Adami explains how information theory can explain the persistence of life.
E23
Richard Dawid: Why Trust a Theory?
Air date: 2015-12-18
Richard Dawid discusses the fine line between science and speculation.











