How Can Math Protect Our Data?

The Joy of Why

Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine

Science, Life Sciences

4.9 • 577 Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Every time data travels — from smartphones to the cloud, or across the vacuum of space — it relies on a silent but vigilant guardian in the form of error-correcting codes. These codes, baked into nearly every digital system, are designed to detect and repair any errors that noise, interference or cosmic rays might inflict.

In this episode of The Joy of Why, Stanford computer scientist Mary Wootters joins co-host Steven Strogatz to explain how these codes work, and why they matter more than ever. Wootters discusses the evolving list of codes that keep modern communication resilient, and the frontiers in which error correction may have a crucial role, including distributed cloud systems, quantum computing and even DNA-based data storage.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Steve Strogatz.
0:06.4	And I'm Janelle Levin.
0:08.3	And this is The Joy of Why, a podcast from Quantum Magazine exploring some of the biggest
0:13.4	unanswered questions in math and science today.
0:15.9	Hi there, Jana.
0:18.3	Hey.
0:19.3	How's it going?
0:20.3	Good.
0:20.7	What do you have for me today?
0:22.7	Well, we're more or less about the same age, so I'm guessing you remember what CDs are.
0:28.0	Oh, yeah.
0:29.2	The kids don't necessarily know. I guess some of them are using vinyl now, aren't they? Records.
0:33.9	Back to vinyl. Yeah. Nobody's back to CDs, though. I don't think anyone's like got a new
0:38.9	CD Walkman, you know. But do you remember back when CDs were the thing and people would
0:44.5	demonstrate that you could scratch them and they would still play? Yeah. I'm bringing it up because
0:50.6	the fact that when you play a CD that's been mangled, if not too totally messed up,
0:56.8	it'll still play is because of a wonderful technology called error correcting code that was built
1:02.1	into that kind of device. And that was the first time I ever ran across the concept. But apparently
1:08.4	it's really out there in our modern world today when you're streaming TV shows or cell phones. Probably this communication we're having with each other right now, there are probably error correcting codes running behind the scenes, making sure that all our bits, you know, our zeros and ones are getting where they're supposed to be, even though there's always noise.
1:28.1	Think how weird it would be if your light switch suddenly switched itself off.
1:31.5	That doesn't really happen in our everyday macroscopic world, but apparently there's a lot of
1:35.7	things that can cause bits to flip.
	...

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