Mathematicians Want To Make Fluid Equations Glitch Out
The Quanta Podcast
Quanta Magazine
4.7 • 638 Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2026
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In reality, water doesn’t glitch out. It can’t instantly change direction or spurt randomly into the sky. But on a purely mathematical level, such things are possible. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks with staff writer Charlie Wood about the equations that describe our rivers, whirlpools, and breezes — and the “unstable blowups” that mathematicians are probing them for. 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.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | We've talked on this podcast before about the equations that mathematicians and physicists |
| 0:10.0 | used to describe fluids in motion. |
| 0:12.6 | They're called the Navier-Stokes equations after the two physicists who devised them |
| 0:16.5 | 200 years ago. |
| 0:18.1 | They're great as equations go. |
| 0:19.9 | They're powerful and accurately describe how fluids |
| 0:22.9 | should behave, water flowing through a pipe, waves on the ocean, air passing over an airplane wing. |
| 0:29.1 | These are all real-world solutions to those Navier-Stokes equations, but that doesn't mean |
| 0:34.1 | that the math behind them is easy to handle. |
| 0:43.0 | Thank you. But that doesn't mean that the math behind them is easy to handle. Welcome to the Quanta podcast, where we explore the frontiers of fundamental science and math. |
| 0:47.4 | I'm Samir Patel, editor-in-chief of Quanta magazine. |
| 0:51.3 | Finding hidden depths in the math of the Navier-Stokes equations was the subject of a recent |
| 0:56.2 | story by Quanta staff writer Charlie Wood called Using AI, Mathematicians Find Hidden Glitches |
| 1:02.0 | in Fluid Equations. |
| 1:03.4 | And Charlie's on the show to talk us through it. |
| 1:05.1 | Welcome back, Charlie. |
| 1:06.3 | Hey, Samir, I'm delighted to be here. |
| 1:08.6 | So, what's the big idea? |
| 1:29.8 | So this story has some physics energy to it, which is what got me into it as a physics reporter, but really, as you mentioned, it's a pure math story. So the physics energy comes from the fact that we have these incredible equations, the Navirot's equations, and they're just as rich and they're just as beautiful as the equations the equations that describe quantum mechanics, so the equation describe space time and general relativity, |
| 1:31.3 | but they describe fluids. |
| 1:34.0 | So, whirlpools, water flowing, all that good stuff. |
| 1:35.5 | So that's the physics side. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Quanta Magazine, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Quanta Magazine and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.