Season 2017

1. Marcus Feldman: In Search of Actions That Alter Evolution

2017-01-05

Marcus Feldman explains how he models the effects of a cultural preference — in this case, a preference for sons over daughters in China.

2. Francis Su: Math and the Good Life

2017-02-03

Francis Su explains how mathematics can help a person to live well.

3. Francis Su: Math Is for Everybody

2017-02-04

Francis Su discusses how the community of mathematicians tends to exclude certain people.

4. Sylvia Serfaty: In Mathematics, ‘You Cannot Be Lied To’

2017-02-21

Sylvia Serfaty explains why you don’t have to be a genius to become a mathematician.

5. Sharon Glotzer: ‘Digital Alchemist’ Seeks Rules of Emergence

2017-03-08

Sharon Glotzer explains how emergence, entropy and order can all fit together.

6. John Novembre: A Map of Human History, Hidden in DNA

2017-04-20

John Novembre explains how he uses genomic data to map human history.

7. Tim Maudlin: A Defense of the Reality of Time

2017-05-19

A Defense of the Reality of Time

8. Journey to the Birth of the Solar System 360 VR

2017-05-25

Join David Kaplan on a virtual-reality tour showing how the sun, the Earth and the other planets came to be.

9. Purvesh Khatri: More Data — the Dirtier the Better

2017-06-07

Khatri learned that by working with 'messy' clinical data sets, he could find genes that the human body expresses in response to diverse forms of a disease.

10. Jessica Flack: How Nature Solves Problems Through Computation

2017-07-10

Jessica Flack describes the special challenges of applying collective computation to the understanding of complex biological systems.

11. Jay Pasachoff: Eclipse Hunter Reveals the Science That Can Only Be Done in the Dark

2017-08-10

Jay Pasachoff explains what scientists can learn during a total solar eclipse.

12. How Andrea Ghez Found a Supermassive Black Hole

2017-08-21

The UCLA astrophysicist explains how tracking the movement of stars revealed the existence of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

13. Svitlana Mayboroda: Taming Rogue Waves

2017-08-22

Svitlana Mayboroda describes how the landscape function helps solve the mystery of wave localization.

14. Neil Johnson: A Physicist Who Models ISIS and the Alt-Right

2017-08-23

Neil Johnson on the physics of collective human behavior.

15. Nigel Goldenfeld: Seeing Emergent Physics Behind Evolution

2017-08-31

Nigel Goldenfeld explains how condensed matter physics provides insights into the collective state of early life on Earth.

16. Rebecca Goldin: Why Math Is the Best Way to Make Sense of the World

2017-09-11

Rebecca Goldin explains why quantitative literacy is so important.

17. Michael Assis: Atomic Origami

2017-10-31

Michael Assis demonstrates how defects can be used to tune the properties of Miura-ori origami.

18. Federico Ardila: A Mathematician Who Dances to the Joys and Sorrows of Discovery

2017-11-20

A Mathematician Who Dances to the Joys and Sorrows of Discovery

19. Minhyong Kim: Connecting Number Theory to Physics

2017-12-01

Minhyong Kim wanted to make sure he had concrete results in number theory before he admitted that his ideas were inspired by physics.

20. Corina Tarnita: First Understand Nature’s Rules

2017-12-20

Corina Tarnita argues that to fully appreciate nature, you must first understand its rules.