George Musser, "Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation: Why Physicists Are Studying Human Consciousness and AI to Unravel the Mysteries of the Universe" (Picador, 2024)
A revelatory exploration of how a “theory of everything” depends upon our understanding of the human mind.The whole goal of physics is to explain what we observe. For centuries, physicists believed th...
27 Aug 20251h 2min
Noah Giansiracusa, "Robin Hood Math: Take Control of the Algorithms That Run Your Life" (Penguin, 2025)
Everything we do today is recorded as data that’s sold to the highest bidder. Plugging our personal data into impersonal algorithms has made government agencies more efficient and tech companies more ...
20 Aug 20251h 2min
Anil Ananthaswamy, "Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI" (Dutton, 2024)
Machine learning systems are making life-altering decisions for us: approving mortgage loans, determining whether a tumor is cancerous, or deciding if someone gets bail. They now influence development...
30 Jul 20251h 7min
Robyn Arianrhod, "Vector: A Surprising Story of Space, Time, and Mathematical Transformation" (U of Chicago Press, 2024)
A celebration of the seemingly simple idea that allowed us to imagine the world in new dimensions--sparking both controversy and discovery. The stars of this book, vectors and tensors, are unlikely c...
25 Jul 20251h 7min
Chris Bernhardt, "Beautiful Math: The Surprisingly Simple Ideas behind the Digital Revolution in How We Live, Work, and Communicate" (MIT Press, 2024)
Most of us know something about the grand theories of physics that transformed our views of the universe at the start of the twentieth century: quantum mechanics and general relativity. But we are muc...
14 Jul 202549min
Scientists Cooperate while Humanists Ruminate (EF, JP)
Back in 2021, John and Elizabeth sat down with Brandeis string theorist Albion Lawrence to discuss cooperation versus solitary study across disciplines. They sink their teeth into the question, “Why d...
17 Apr 202539min
Grace Lindsay, "Models of the Mind: How Physics, Engineering and Mathematics Have Shaped Our Understanding of the Brain" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
Models of the Mind: How Physics, Engineering and Mathematics Have Shaped Our Understanding of the Brain (Bloomsbury, 2021) provides a multifaceted and approachable introduction to theoretical neurosci...
20 Mar 202549min
Karenleigh A. Overmann, "The Material Origin of Numbers: Insights from the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East" (Gorgias Press, 2024)
What are numbers, and where do they come from? Based on her groundbreaking study of material devices used for counting in the Ancient Near East, Karenleigh Overmann proposes a novel answer to these ti...
28 Jan 202510min
