Looking for continents on exoplanets, and math is hard for mathematicians, too

First up on the podcast, the best images of exoplanets right now are basically bright dots. We can’t see possible continents, potential oceans, or even varying colors. To improve our view, scientists are proposing a faraway fleet of telescopes that would use light bent by the Sun’s gravity to magnify a distant exoplanet. Staff Writer Daniel Clery joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss where to aim such a magnificent telescope and all the technological pieces needed to put it together.

Next on the show, expert voices columnist and Johns Hopkins University mathematician Emily Riehl discusses her recent essay on communication woes in the math community. The complex concepts, jargon, and the slow pace of understanding a proof all add up to siloed subdisciplines and potentially more errors in the literature. Alex Kontorovich, a professor in the math department at Rutgers University, also joins to discuss how proof assistant computer programs and machine learning could help get mathematicians all on the same page.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

About the Science Podcast

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