Explainers

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Space-Time: The Biggest Problem in Physics

What is the deepest level of reality? In this Quanta explainer, Vijay Balasubramanian, a physicist at the University of Pennsylvania, takes us on a journey through space-time to investigate what it’s made of, why it’s failing us, and where physics can go next.


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Peter and Rosemary Grant: Watching Evolution Happen in Two Lifetimes

September 22, 2016

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

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

September 1, 2016

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

Miranda Cheng: A Moonshine Master Toys With String Theory

August 4, 2016

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

How Does Life Come From Randomness?

June 30, 2016

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

Suchitra Sebastian: An Explorer of Quantum Borderlands

June 9, 2016

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

Ken Ono: A Life Inspired by an Unexpected Genius

May 19, 2016

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

Janna Levin on Science and Culture

May 5, 2016

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

Tiny Tests Seek the Universe’s Big Mysteries

May 3, 2016

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

David Moore: Tabletop Physics

May 3, 2016

David Moore of Stanford University describes how, inside this chamber, silica spheres probe for distortions of gravity.