Is Particle Physics Dead, Dying, or Just Hard?
The Quanta Podcast
Quanta Magazine
4.7 • 638 Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Particle physics hasn't yet found the new physics needed to resolve its deepest mysteries. It’s hard to know what to think about or look for. But the most devoted particle physicists are thinking and looking all the same. On this episode, host Samir Patel and columnist Natalie Wolchover discuss the first of our new series of curiosity-driven essays, Qualia, where Natalie asks particle physicists whether the field is facing a profound crisis.
This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine. Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.
Audio Coda provided by UCL High Energy Physics.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Have you ever had the urge to sneak behind the cordoned off areas of a museum? |
| 0:05.7 | Or roam the halls after closing time? |
| 0:08.7 | The Smithsonian's flagship podcast, Side Door, will sneak you behind the scenes of the world's |
| 0:14.5 | largest museum and research complex. |
| 0:17.5 | Come learn about the ghosts that supposedly walk the museum halls after dark. |
| 0:21.6 | How a train robbery gave rise to criminal forensics, |
| 0:24.6 | why leeches are actually the coolest thing ever, and how to get away with murder in the Arctic. |
| 0:30.6 | Maybe. |
| 0:31.6 | You'll discover stories of history, science, art, and culture you won't find in a display case. You can listen to Side Door wherever |
| 0:39.2 | you get your podcasts or find us online at sI.edu slash sidedoor. |
| 0:52.7 | When I started as editor-in-chief at Quanta magazine a couple of years ago, |
| 0:57.3 | one of the people I was most excited to collaborate with was the physics editor at the time, |
| 1:01.7 | Natalie Walschover. |
| 1:03.4 | Natalie had been at Quanta as a writer and editor since almost the very beginning of the publication. |
| 1:09.2 | She was responsible for hundreds of stories and her |
| 1:12.2 | landmark feature on the James Webb Space Telescope helped the magazine win a Pulitzer Prize for |
| 1:18.0 | explanatory reporting. Now Natalie has transitioned to being Quantus first columnist while she's |
| 1:23.1 | putting the finishing touches on her first book. And she'll be writing monthly essays for us under |
| 1:28.0 | the name Qualia that will dig into some of the biggest questions in the universe. |
| 1:32.9 | The first of those essays has just dropped on the site, and it looks at particle physics |
| 1:36.9 | and whether the field is dead or dying or just really, really hard. |
| 1:52.8 | Welcome to the Quantum Podcast, where we explore the frontiers of fundamental science and math. |
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