Welcome to Quantum Magazine's podcast. Each episode, we bring you stories about developments in science and mathematics. I'm Susan Vallett.

Researchers had long sought a master problem that would determine the existence of secure cryptography.

They finally found one.

And it turns out to be one of the oldest questions in computational complexity.

That's next.

Imagine you're in a lab where you've synthesized ancient DNA sequences

and spliced them into modern bacteria just to see how they'd react.

They needed each other, but they didn't want each other.

So, you know, it was like a very complicated relationship unfolding in front of me.

This isn't Jurassic Park or some sci-fi movie.

I'm Steve Strogetz, and this is The Joy of Why.

A new podcast from Quantum Magazine that takes you into some of the biggest unanswered mysteries

in science and math today.

Join me on The Joy of Why as we explore these questions.

We may not have all the answers yet, but I'm pretty sure the curiosity to figure them out

is in our DNA. Subscribe to The Joy of Why wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every other

Thursday.

In 1868, mathematician Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll,

proclaimed that an encryption scheme called the visionary cipher was unbreakable.

He had no proof, but he had compelling reasons for his belief.

After all, mathematicians had been trying unsuccessfully to break the cipher for more than three

centuries. There was just one small problem. A German infantry officer named Friedrich Kassiski

...