TJ The Joy of Why

Podcast

The Joy of Why

“The Joy of Why” is a Quanta Magazine podcast about curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge. The mathematician and author Steven Strogatz and the cosmologist and author Janna Levin take turns interviewing leading researchers about the great scientific and mathematical questions of our time. New episodes are released every other Wednesday.Quanta Magazine is a Pulitzer Prize–winning, editorially independent online publication launched and supported by the Simons Foundation to illuminate big ideas in science and math through public service journalism. Quanta’s reporters and editors focus on develo...

Website ↗ Last published 29 October 2026 78 posts collected by Sputnik

Said on The Joy of Why

“We split our teams up into four groups. Each group had the data, but they could not talk to each other because we wanted to make sure that we all weren't in the same room thinking, like, I see a ring. Do you see a ring? I see a ring. And it's not a ring, right? … The four teams put up their images, and they were all rings. That was a moment where there was a lot of crying and screaming. And then we spent the next six months trying to make those rings go away.” — Shep Doeleman, The Joy of Why
Shep Doeleman · 29 Oct 2026 Listen →
“Fungi can artificially inflate the price by hoarding the phosphorus in their network… what we documented was that the fungus was taking up phosphorus on a very rich side of the network and moving it actively all the way to the other side of the network where the plant was willing to pay more. So, actively moving resources to get a higher price.” — Toby Kiers, The Joy of Why
Toby Kiers · 15 Oct 2026 Listen →
“…I don't believe in truth. I believe in multiple perspectives.” — Jonathan Halliwell, The Joy of Why
Jonathan Halliwell · 17 Sep 2026 Listen →

Hosts

The Joy of Why is hosted by Steven Strogatz and Janna Levin .

Recent Episodes

  1. 29 Oct 2026

    How Do You Take a Picture of a Black Hole?

    With Shep Doeleman

  2. 15 Oct 2026

    How Do Fungi Keep the Planet Healthy?

    With Toby Kiers

  3. 1 Oct 2026

    What Does the Fourth Dimension Actually Look Like?

    With Maggie Miller

  4. 17 Sep 2026

    Where Does the Quantum World End and Ours Begin?

    With Jonathan Halliwell

  5. 3 Sep 2026

    Live from ICM 2026: What Is Math For in the Age of AI?

    With Akshay Venkatesh , Alex Kontorovich and Ravi Vakil

  6. 20 Aug 2026

    Are We Thinking Correctly about AI Intelligence?

    With Melanie Mitchell

  7. 6 Aug 2026

    How Does Touch Lead To Pain Or Pleasure?

    With Ishmail Abdus-Saboor

  8. 23 Jul 2026

    How Fast Is the Universe Really Expanding?

    With Adam Riess

  9. 9 Jul 2026

    Will We Ever Find Alien Civilizations?

    With David Kipping

  10. 25 Jun 2026

    What Is the Positive Grassmannian and Why Does It Show Up Everywhere?

    With Lauren Williams

  11. 11 Jun 2026

    What’s the Future of Gene Editing?

    With Jennifer Doudna

  12. 4 Jun 2026

    More Conversations, Complex Questions, and Bold Ideas in Season Five of ‘The Joy of Why’

Guests

Isabel Garcia Garcia , Boaz Barak , Betül Kaçar , Monika Schleier-Smith , Dena Dubal , Ishmail Abdus-Saboor , Daniela Rus , Siddharth Shanker Saxena , Will Ratcliff , Lisa Piccirillo , Yejin Choi , Robert Hazen , and 66 more.