WEBVTT - Thomas Lin Discusses Deep Science (Podcast) 0:00:02.200 --> 0:00:06.800 This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:12.520 I have an extra special guest. His name is Thomas 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.919 Lynn and he has a fascinating background in math and 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:21.480 science as well as journalism. He is the founding editor 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:25.920 of Quanta Magazine, which is a news and math website 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:32.360 founded and funded by Jim Simon's foundation UH. Simmons is 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:35.880 the founder of Renaissance Technologies, one of the most successful 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:39.800 hedge funds in the world. UH. Jim Simons and his 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:43.920 wife Marilyn run a philanthropic foundation where they are very 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:48.720 interested in math and science education, both at at the 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:53.080 most basic level UM educating American UM students to be 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:56.840 better at math and science, and as you'll see with Quanta, 0:00:57.000 --> 0:00:59.880 at the very highest levels. I've been a fan of 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.680 the site for since it launched. It's really quite fascinating. 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.160 You don't need a PhD in mathematics or science to 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.759 be able to keep up with it. It's really intriguing UM. 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:14.960 Thomas has done a wonderful job finding some of the 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:21.679 most interesting research and stories UH and breaking news about 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:25.120 the latest discoveries in math and science, and making it 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.280 very readable and very accessible UM. If you're at all 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.600 interested in science and math, and really all of us 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:35.480 should be. Then I think you'll find this conversation to 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:40.480 be absolutely fascinating. So, with no further ado, my conversation 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:49.160 with Quantum Magazines editor in chief Thomas Lynn. My guest 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:52.600 this week is Thomas Lynn. He is the founding editor 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:57.880 of Quantum Magazine. It is an award winning editorially independent 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:03.960 science and maths eight published by the Simons Foundation. Uh. 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:07.760 That is the philanthropic arm of Jim Simons, who founded 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:12.800 Renaissance Technologies. Uh. Thomas Lynne previously was the digital editor 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:16.480 for The New York Times. UH. He comes to us 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:20.960 by way of Cornell University and the Oregon State University, 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.519 where he got his masters in teaching and literatures. At right, 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:29.680 that's right, fantastic Thomas Lynn, Welcome to Bloomberg. Thank you. So. 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.799 So you have a really eclectic background, and I want 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:37.400 to spend a little time, um getting into that and 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.799 find out how you ended up found in Quanta. But 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:44.720 let's talk about your background. You're an engineer, you're a 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:48.000 former editor at the Times. How do you end up 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.880 um creating a magazine like Quanta. Yeah, it's a kind 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.040 of a crazy story and I think with as with 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:56.800 a lot of people who end up in in a 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:01.800 place that they ultimately really enjoy and feel very uh 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:04.519 satisfied with, and in terms of their careers, I sort 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:06.200 of fell into it. I mean I started out, you know, 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:08.040 in college, just not knowing what I wanted to do, 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:10.280 and I studied physics and I studied literature, and you know, 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:12.919 really was all over the place, and so ended up 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:15.519 sort of utilizing a little bit of the physics side 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:17.320 of things as an engineer initially, but then I also 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:19.520 wanted the human aspects I taught for a few years, 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.800 and I realized, especially after nine eleven, Uh, I realized 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:24.519 that I wanted to be out there in the world 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:26.919 learning more about what's happening and helping up bring news 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:29.639 events to the broader public. And so I decided to 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:34.240 become a journalist and eventually backed my way into science journalism. 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:37.839 So so you end up at the Writer's Institute at 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:41.600 the Cuney Graduate Center, ultimately you start teaching journalism there. 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.680 When you look at the world of science writing, are 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:50.600 there many people who have both aspects the hard science 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.840 of physics and either literature or journalism or does that 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.760 make you a relatively rare bird. You know, I think 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.160 that people, a lot of people are are smarter than 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:00.840 I am, and when they're young and they realized what 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.000 they're good at, and they specialized and they either go 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:05.440 sort of the science track, or they've become you know, 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.320 humanities major, they study literature, they study you know, something else, 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:10.360 or they go into law or medicine or something like that. 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:12.920 I really just had a broad interest from a very 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.880 young age, and I loved writing. It's very interested in literature. 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:18.880 But I also had parents who were essentially physicists, and 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.080 I grew up in this very science culture kind of 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:24.320 environment all my family. I have a lot of scientists 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:26.240 in my family, and so there's always that part of 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.000 my brain that that works that way. So both parents 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.919 were physicists. What what was the dinner table conversation like, Yeah, No, 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:36.560 I was definitely pushed to go ahead in things like 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.360 math and physics in in school. I ended up studying 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.120 calculus after my freshman year in high school. And um, 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.400 and you know, so the conversations were about everything, but 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:48.680 there was definitely a scientific bent to a lot of 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:52.120 those conversations. And we had my mom loved puzzles and 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:54.000 we had puzzles all over the place in our house. 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:57.800 That's that's interesting. So you spent a few years doing journalism, 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.279 you end up as a digital editor at the New 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.800 York Times. What would then involve? Yeah, So initially I 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:07.560 started on the national desk at the time, so it 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:09.279 wasn't about science at all, and I was just a 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:12.000 journalist to learn about what's happening in the world and 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:14.200 bring that to people. And uh, and that was great. 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:16.080 I mean the Times. When I decided I wanted to 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.479 go into journalism, you know, like many people, the Times 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:20.599 was the dream, right, That's where I wanted to be 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:22.400 and I was very lucky to be able to land 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:24.600 that that job when I did, And I started on 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.560 the digital side, which code really interesting opportunity in terms 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.960 of that interface between the newer technologies that we're starting 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:33.400 to change the ways journalism was done and sort of 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:35.920 the older traditional legacy print publication and there a lot 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:37.840 of things were just changing. As a very sort of 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:39.719 radical time in a way. To be at The Times, 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:44.080 and I recall the New York Times being pretty leading 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:49.560 edge in terms of interactive graphics. Anytime there's a complex 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:54.120 news event, The Times as well as the Wolfs Rejournal 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:57.800 and later on the Washington Post would have these giant, 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:02.240 intricate um so Katrina and the flooding. I remember you 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.359 just kind of scroll through that and it was um 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:06.720 and now you go back and look at it that 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.360 at the time it was so advanced. Today that's kind 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.960 of rookie stuff. It's really bleeding edge technologies very much. 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:16.120 And then they were they were had a great foresight 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.120 in terms of starting early. They didn't necessarily have it 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:20.240 all figured out early on, but they started early. They 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:22.479 started getting stuff on the web, They started hiring people 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:24.520 like me to think about what we could do did 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:29.640 journalistically online that wasn't just replicating the paper. Remember working 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:32.120 on some of the Hurricane Katrina coverage and working all 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:34.960 night because it was so important to bring people immediate 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.000 pictures of what was happening on the ground. And that's 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:39.240 not something you can get through a daily newspaper. Right 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.479 the print, listen, print is really important and and the 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.760 written word it really matters. But it's true, if a 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:48.279 picture is worth a thousand words, what is an interactive 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.200 graphic work exactly? So, so how do you get from 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:55.719 the Times to Quanta? That's a pretty big um I'll 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:59.920 avoid all the cliches. That's a pretty big leap, isn't it. Sure. Yeah, 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:02.320 And it's hard because I was at the Times for 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:05.400 almost eight years, and about seven a half years after 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:07.800 the National Desk, I worked on the Science desk for 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:10.640 about three years and learn a lot from the editors there. 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:12.640 And I think it was because I was on the 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:15.920 Science desk somebody from the Science Foundation reached out asking 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.280 did I know any good science editors who could help 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.360 them produce high quality science articles? And I sort of 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:23.960 scratched my head and I wanted to find out more 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.280 about who I should recommend. So I asked them about 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:30.000 this job, just to find out who. Yeah, no, but 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:31.360 and and you know, and and the thing is that, 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:33.720 you know, I was a journalist, so I was not 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:37.000 interested in going to do communications or PR that sort 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.480 of thing. And so but in talking to the Foundation, 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.800 I started to learn that they actually had this other 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:45.800 publication already that was editorially independent, and there was a 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.440 possibility that whoever came into this role could do some 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.560 editorially independent science journalism. And so I got a little 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:53.680 bit interested in thought, well, what if we actually could 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:56.240 start a magazine and do something a little bit bigger 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.040 and really changed the way hopefully that people see how 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.800 science coverage is done. And and Quanta Online I linked 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.000 to it pretty regularly. I I love some of the 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:09.480 graphics that you guys do. It's pretty clear that this 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:15.520 is a well thought out, big budget specialty site. UM, 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:17.280 so it's not it's not that big budget actually, so 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:20.000 we have a really small team who that was very 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.920 very hard because well, let me then rephrase that it 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:27.200 looks like it has a pretty big budget because it's there. 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.080 There are a lot of you know, ge whiz uh 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:35.959 special effects, but it's pretty in depth UM coverage and 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.600 and a lot of the breaking news in math and science. 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:43.080 And I know that's almost a counterintuitive statement. It doesn't 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:45.640 just get you know, a rip and read off a 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:50.640 PR release. It's a deep explanation about here's what just 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.760 was discovered through this research, and here's why it's significant, 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:57.880 and here's how this fits into the long history of 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.200 this aspect of math or science exactly. And that's exactly 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:03.400 why I wanted to start this publication as I looked 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:08.600 out there at the offerings that most mainstream publications had 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:11.120 in terms of their science coverage, and it was a 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:13.080 little disheartening. I have to say, I mean not not 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:17.720 only the level of the lack of depth of the coverage, 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:19.800 but also to some extent, the choice. I mean, so 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.720 much of what you see is health and technology coverage, 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.360 but so little of it is fundamental basic science, which 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:27.560 is really where all of our knowledge comes from about 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:29.400 the world and by the universe around us. And so 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:31.680 I wanted to cover not only these subjects, which are 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.280 inherently the most fundamental, deepest, biggest questions we have about 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:37.560 everything and what's you know, what's in the universe, how 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:39.679 things work, but also covered in a way with a 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.440 little bit of depth, still tell engaging stories about it, 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.120 but actually get things right, do the careful fact checking, 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:47.760 do the careful reporting and research, take the time to 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:50.280 get the story right, and to tell the more nuanced 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:54.280 story of what's happening in science. Quite fascinating. So let's 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.800 talk a little bit about that. I had a conversation 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:03.600 recently with someone, and part of our discussion was having 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:07.920 to acknowledge that we are living in a golden age 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:13.640 of physics, of new mathematical breakthroughs of astrophysics. We have 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:18.800 never known more about the universe either on an astronomical 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:22.960 level or at the quantum level than ever before. Am 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:25.600 I overselling that or is that a fair statement? I 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.240 think it's it's it's I think that's fair. On one hand, 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:30.839 so we are learning more than ever. At the same time, 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:32.880 we're also learning how much we don't know, and I 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:35.040 think that's also where we are. So it's a golden 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.440 era in terms of being in this I think it's 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:39.640 very exciting the things that we can do now, whether 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:42.120 it's experimentally in terms of the theories and the math 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:44.520 that's being developed. At the same time, we're also hitting 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.600 the limits of what we can test experimentally in terms 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:51.359 of the largest structures and and thinking about the cosmos, 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:55.640 but also the smallest um you know, quantum level interactions. 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.199 We're sort of coming to a point where the theories 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.520 can no longer be fully tested primarily, and that is 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.240 leading to a little bit of an internal uh, sort 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:08.200 of soul searching, and and you know, there's there's work 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:10.000 to be done to figure out what the next revolution 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:12.760 will be in physics. So so the Dunning Krueger curve 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:17.120 applies to everything. You could say that so um, and 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:18.640 for those of you who are not familiar with that, 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:22.480 just google Dunning Krueger and you'll you'll spend hours reading 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.959 fascinating things about the things we think we know but don't. 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:29.920 But but that's really kind of a fascinating area. As 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.559 we approach the limits of what we can test in 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:37.319 the laboratory, does that mean theoretical physics or or moving 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:42.280 away from applied mathematics, the theoretical math becomes an increasingly 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:46.439 important aspect of our research. Well, I think that's where 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.840 the debates are happening right around this is you know 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:51.840 both things, whether it's in the laboratory in terms of 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.959 looking at things that are really small, or also even 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.680 looking out what we can actually uh in terms of 0:11:57.679 --> 0:11:59.720 the visible universe, what we can see, and of course 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:01.440 there's a lot that we can't see in terms of 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:03.920 dark matter and dark energy, things that we most of 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.040 the universe is universe is made up of stuff that 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:10.200 we don't even know what it is, or we're just 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:12.840 not seeing what's there. And there's an interest. I'm trying 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:14.760 to remember. So I have two of your books, which 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.680 we'll talk about later, But there was just a debate 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.120 about dark matter, and part of the question becomes is 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:25.280 there is dark matter really the universe or dark matter 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:29.120 and dark energy together, or are our technologies and ability 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.440 to perceive the rest of the universe not picking up 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:34.640 what what may or may not be there, and so 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.800 the assumption is it's dark matter or something else. How 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.360 much of this is a measurement issue and how much 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.160 of this is g We really have no idea what 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.920 x out there. Well, there there is a lot of 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:49.160 indirect evidence that this stuff is out there. I mean, 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:52.720 everything that we're observing indicates that dark matter and dark 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.400 energy does exist. There are some theories out there that 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.800 have I think slowly been they're they're sort of not 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.360 they're they're losing faver because the evidence is not supporting it. 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:04.720 There's some ideas of modified gravity and and other ways 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:06.520 that you could explain away things like dark matter. But 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:10.560 I think most physicists agree that dark matter and dark 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:12.480 energy exists, but we just don't know what it is, 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:14.280 and we don't have the ability to detect it, and 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.839 we can't see it because um, whatever it is, it's 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:18.200 not in it. Well it's it's dark, but it's not 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:20.800 interacting with things that we can detect. But we we 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:24.760 continue to see that the universe continues to expand faster 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:28.280 than it would if if visible matter and energy was 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.160 all there was. So there has to be something driving 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:35.240 galaxies apart no matter what direction in space, right, the 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.880 movements of galaxies. Uh, you know, there's got to be 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:41.000 something that that's affecting that movement, and that's the dark matter. 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:43.520 And then the acceleration in the universe. Uh is the 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.160 dark energy causing that? So so let's talk a little 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:50.360 bit about Quanta. You're a foundation based publication as opposed 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:56.680 to a subscription slash advertising UM format. How does that 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:59.880 make UM what you do a little different and does 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.320 that afford you freedoms to go places that perhaps the 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:08.200 traditional media just simply doesn't have the time or patients. Yeah. No, 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.160 I think it is liberating in the sense that we 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:15.679 are both editorially independent and yet we are funded to 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.960 do this very mission oriented, very important kind of journalism 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.760 making fundamental science accessible to all. Uh. There are other 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.360 publications like this that are nonprofit, that are funded by 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:28.760 foundations like Pro Publica for example, that are very important 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.400 investigative journalism. And these are the areas of journalism that 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.360 have a hard time attracting advertisers. They're very expensive because 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:35.800 it takes a lot of time to do it well, 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:38.680 but they don't pay for themselves, and so they've been 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:42.800 slowly receding from the commercial publications that that we have 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.800 none of None of your headlines would would make it 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:50.120 onto BuzzFeed just to say the least um. How neanderthal 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:55.320 DNA helps humanity. The neuroscience behind bad decisions uh in 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.560 newly created life form a major mystery. I mean, these 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.640 aren't the sort of things that are especially clicky, but 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:07.520 there are important parts of new research, and disseminating them 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:10.880 out from behind a payball is important, very much. It's 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.120 very important that's freely accessible. And you know, we try 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.280 to make our our headlines inviting, but at the same 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:16.960 time we try to capture a little bit of what 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:18.840 the story is really about, and so we don't do 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:21.120 the click bait, we don't do things that are overly 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:24.960 sensational or misleading. So so really that raises the key question, 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.040 how do you decide, hey, this is a good topic, 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:30.360 this is a good subject, or this piece of research 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:35.800 is accessible enough to those people who aren't experts in this. 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:38.880 You know, it used to be you're a generalist a 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:41.920 mile wide and not too deep. Now it's the opposite. 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:44.680 Everyone is such a specialist. It's a quarter inch wide 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:46.800 and a mile deep. How do you decide who to 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:48.560 appeal to? Yeah, first of all, I would say that 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.600 there's nothing that I consider something that we wouldn't cover 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:53.480 in terms of how difficult it is. That that's something 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:55.040 that we that's sort sort of our calling card as 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:57.960 a publication. We we will cover the hardest, most abstract, 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:01.160 difficult subjects out there, but we uh, you know really so. 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.400 The one thing is that as journalists and as people 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:05.840 who have been covering this, uh these areas for quite 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:07.440 a while, we do get a sense and we get 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:11.920 get a sense of developed hopefully a good taste in 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:14.680 terms of what are important and interesting stories. At the 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:16.520 same time, we're not experts in these subjects, so we 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:19.000 can't just say, oh, well, I think this is important, 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.600 therefore we're just going to cover this. We actually talked 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:23.880 to a lot of the true experts out in the field. 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:25.680 We talk to many people, and not just people with 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.280 their own pet theories, but to enough people where we 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:29.840 can get a sense of okay, there there is this 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.760 uh groundswelling of of of interest and level of excitement 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.200 about this new idea and it's worth talking about. At 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:38.080 the same time, it's worth talking about the caveats to 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:39.680 and the limitations, and so we try to do that 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:42.160 as well. So who are the journalists you have writing 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:45.840 about these very hard subjects. Are they science people first 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.400 who can write? Or are the writers who have an 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.480 interest in science? It's really both. Yeah, so we have both. 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:53.880 We have people who we have a former math professor 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:55.760 who who is now a fantastic probably one of the 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.280 best math writers journalists out there today. We have our 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.800 our staff of the writer uh studied at least part 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:06.520 way through a physics graduate program. But we also have 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:10.160 our our staff math writer is someone who was humanities 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.560 major and and did not have a math background, but 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.959 now has been covering up for enough long enough and 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:17.960 who has been talking to enough of the top experts 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:20.800 that he has this just crystal clear ability to explains 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:25.119 some of the most difficult, profound, pure mathematics that you 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.760 wouldn't believe. And so it's something. And you know other 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.320 writers like Carl Zimmer, very well known biology writer. He's 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:31.960 written for us a couple of times. He was also 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.359 a humanities major as well. He's one of the foremost 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.000 biology writers of our time, and and has has even 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.040 written textbooks on evolution and things like that. So really 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:41.679 it can come from both sides as long as you 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:43.960 end up in a place where you can do both 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:47.600 understand enough of the of the deep science and write 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:51.600 well about it quite quite fascinating. So no less an 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:55.960 expert than Sean Carroll writes for a number of fine publications, 0:17:56.000 --> 0:18:00.080 including The New York Times, Cold Quanta A revelation and 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:05.960 what makes Quanta different than your typical math or science publication, 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.919 assuming that there are still math publications, I don't know 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.240 if there are. Well, that's one of the things that 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:13.800 there really aren't any popular math publications, and that's partly 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:15.920 why I wanted to start Quanta as well. That was 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:17.840 very kind of Shawn to say. Then he also wrote 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:20.560 the forward to our new science book as well, Some 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.040 Bob Meet the Wall of Fire, and he said some 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:24.800 really kind things in there. But he also talked about 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.359 something that is is very true about sort of where 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.240 we are in terms of media coverage of science and 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:32.199 and there are scientists who are the ones who are 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.640 the experts who are doing this work often look at 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.320 even though they do take the interviews and they talk 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:42.000 to reporters. Uh, they often are quite skeptical of the 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:47.000 way that the media treats that their work because unfortunately, UM, 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:51.520 some publications don't take the time to carefully vet the work, 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.840 and they cover things that either aren't necessarily good studies, 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:56.359 or they don't talk to enough people to get a 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:58.600 sense of what's really going on, or they just throughout 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.000 these headlines that make it seem like, you know, we've 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:03.280 cured cancer, when really we haven't. We've learned maybe a 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.400 little bit more about one specific aspect of sure. Look 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:10.000 at look at how the entire anti vax are craziness 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:15.320 just ran away from any rational thought and it was 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:18.080 just a combination of people not doing their homework and 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:21.280 of course a giant fraud in the land set to 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:24.719 start out. So the whole thinking behind this is, we 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:26.680 want to do this right, we want to do it carefully. 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:32.359 How long do you typically take to create, um, a 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:34.680 full story. Some of these are pretty in depth, and 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.880 it looks like they're not like I can crank something 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:42.240 out in twenty minutes. These are not short pieces, right, No, 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:44.119 not at all. And and you know, it really does 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:46.960 does depend something. Sometimes there is news that we have 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:48.600 to respond to quickly, and we have to turn something 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:51.400 around in a few days. That's that's not that common though, 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:52.960 in the areas that we're covering, right, So most of 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.040 the time we do have at least a few weeks 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.400 to work on these stories. Uh, some stories, some features 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:00.520 you know that are a couple of thousand words, could 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:04.960 take three weeks to do. Some pieces take a few months, 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.760 just partly because we're still developed, the ideas are still developing. 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.600 We need to talk to people, the work isn't quite 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:13.879 completed yet. And often we're actually covering papers that are 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:16.679 coming coming out on the archive what's known as the archive, 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:22.040 which is a repository of scientific preprint papers, which means 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:26.159 that they haven't yet been accepted to a journal and 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:28.320 they haven't been peer reviewed. And yet this is the 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.159 place now where you have open access to all sorts 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:34.440 of important papers that then other scientists can just chime 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:36.080 in and they can get feedback on it, and we 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:38.720 can also talk to other experts to make sure that 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:42.840 a paper is worthwhile, that it's been carefully vetted before 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:45.120 we cover it. So so let me throw a curve 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:47.679 bowl at you, because I think the average person is 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:52.920 unaware of what's going on in academia and publications. UM, 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:57.080