Information Theory

Dr. Trisha Pasricha is a gastroenterologist at Harvard Medical School, director of the Institute for Gut Brain Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Ask a Doctor columnist at the Washington Post. Her new book is "You've Been Pooping All Wrong: How to Make Your Bowel Movements a Joy." We talk about why 95% of Americans aren't getting enough fiber, how your smar...

Steven Pinker sits down for an interview about his seminal 2002 book, The Blank Slate. In this interview, we talk about grade inflation at Harvard, the role of tenure in promoting free speech and controversial ideas, the three laws of behavioral genetics and what they mean for parents, the surprising age at which language learning ability declines, and what ChatGPT tells us about how the human min...

Luca Lampariello grew up monolingual in Rome. At 10, his teacher told him he simply wasn't cut out for language learning. Today, he speaks 15 languages – 10 of them fluently – and runs one of the largest polyglot YouTube channels in the world. In this conversation, we cover: why he was bad at Italian before he was good at anything else, the role his 90-year-old grandmother played in shaping his cu...

David Bessis is a mathematician and the author of Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosity . In this conversation, we explore David's provocative claim that mathematical ability is not genetically determined — and what that means for how we teach, learn, and think about intelligence itself. David explains why math books aren't meant to be read, why conference talks often aren...

David Moser is a scholar of linguistics at Capital Normal University in Beijing and the author of A Billion Voices: China’s Search for a Common Language. 0:00 Introduction 5:28 The Challenge of Translating Gödel, Escher, Bach 21:14 Cultural and Economic Changes in China in the 1980s 31:37 Why Chinese is So Damn Hard 38:56 The Core of Language is not the Writing System 44:04 The Political Fiction o...

Professor Avi Loeb is a theoretical physicist who was the longest-serving chair of Harvard University's Department of Astronomy. In this episode, we talk about the possible extraterrestrial origins of Oumuamua, the eventual fate of our solar system, and how mainstream academia suppresses risk-taking and innovation. 0:00 Introduction 1:46 The Discovery of Oumuamua 8:05 Light Sails and Space Trash:...

Stephen Hsu is a theoretical physicist, technology entrepreneur, blogger, and podcaster. We talk about his education as a physicist, how research funding decisions are made in academia, and the replication crisis in science.

Daniel Everett is a linguist and anthropologist whose work has challenged long-standing beliefs about human language and cognition. In 1977, Dan journeyed deep into the Amazon rainforest as a Christian missionary to live among an indigenous tribe of hunter-gatherers known as the Pirahã. He is the author of several acclaimed books, including "Don't Sleep, There are Snakes" and "How Language Began"....