105 | Ann-Sophie Barwich on the Science and Philosophy of Smell

When many of us think "Ancient Rome," we think of the Empire and the Caesars. But the Empire was preceded by the Roman Republic, which flourished for a full five centuries. Why, after such a long and ...

11 Mar 20191h 31min

Quantum mechanics is our best theory of how reality works at a fundamental level, yet physicists still can't agree on what the theory actually says. At the heart of the puzzle is the "measurement prob...

4 Mar 20191h 42min

Everything we think about the world outside our immediate senses is shaped by information brought to us by other sources. In the case of what's currently happening to the human race, we call that info...

25 Feb 20191h 8min

Within every person's mind there is on ongoing battle between reason and emotion. It's not always a battle, of course; very often the two can work together. But at other times, our emotions push us to...

18 Feb 20191h 10min

Reality is a tricky thing. Is love real? What about the number 5? This is clearly a job for a philosopher, and James Ladyman is one of the world's acknowledged experts. He and his collaborators have b...

11 Feb 20191h 7min

Our climate is in the midst of dramatic changes, driven largely by human activity, with potentially enormous consequences for humanity and other species. That's why science tells us, anyway. But there...

4 Feb 20191h 10min

String theory was originally proposed as a relatively modest attempt to explain some features of strongly-interacting particles, but before too long developed into an ambitious attempt to unite all th...

28 Jan 20191h 11min

It's hardly news that computers are exerting ever more influence over our lives. And we're beginning to see the first glimmers of some kind of artificial intelligence: computer programs have become mu...

21 Jan 20191h 28min