The Joy of Why

The Joy of Why is the other podcast from Quanta Magazine, and it takes a different approach than their news-focused show. Co-hosted by mathematician Steven Strogatz and cosmologist Janna Levin, this one zooms out from specific discoveries to ask bigger questions. Episodes have titles like "Why Did The Universe Begin?" and the conversations genuinely try to sit with the uncertainty rather than rushing to neat answers. Strogatz won a National Academies communication award partly for his work on this show, and you can hear why. He has a gift for making abstract mathematical ideas feel intuitive, and Levin brings a physicist's perspective that grounds the philosophical threads. They interview researchers across disciplines, from theoretical physics to climate science to neuroscience. The quantum-relevant episodes tend to be the most popular, and they dig into questions about measurement, information, and the structure of spacetime with real care. New episodes come out every other Wednesday, running 40 to 50 minutes each. With 66 episodes and a remarkable 4.9-star average from nearly 500 ratings, it has one of the highest listener satisfaction rates of any science podcast. The pace is deliberate and the tone is curious rather than breathless. It's the kind of show that makes you want to sit with a question for a while after the episode ends, which is pretty much the best thing a science podcast can do.