What’s Your Problem?

  • Solving Solar’s Biggest Problem

    We need better, cheaper ways to store solar and wind energy when it’s dark out and the wind isn’t blowing. One option: Compressing air in underground caverns when energy is abundant, then blowing it back…

  • How Bubbles Power Breakthroughs

    There are moments in history when people make huge technological advances all of a sudden. Think of the Manhattan Project, the Apollo missions, or, more recently, generative AI. But what do these moments have in…

  • Teaching AI to Build Stuff in the Physical World

    AI works well in the virtual world. That’s partly because the internet provides so much data to train AI models. But there’s no analogous data set for the physical world – and as a result,…

  • NVIDIA: At the Heart of the AI Boom

    In the past few years,  NVIDIA has become one of the most valuable and important companies in the world by making GPUs, the chips powering the AI boom. But where did the company come from,…

  • What Claude Shannon Figured Out

     Claude Shannon is a major figure in the history of technology. Known as the father of information theory, Shannon spent decades at Bell Labs and MIT. But what exactly did Claude Shannon figure out, and…

  • Measles: The Cancer Killer?… from Incubation

    We thought we knew everything there was to know about measles. But in recent years, new research has revealed that the virus attacks the immune system and creates effects far more dramatic than a rash…

  • RoboPod and the Perpetual Money Machine – Cautionary Questions 2… from Cautionary Tales

    What really drove the 2008 financial crash? What’s a shadow bank? And what’s the connection between NIMBYs and BANANAs? Tim Harford and Jacob Goldstein answer more of your questions. Enjoy this episode from Cautionary Tales,…

  • Turning Solar Energy Into Fuel (The Solar Era, Part 3)

    Solar power and batteries are becoming cheap and ubiquitous. Great. But there are problems batteries can’t solve – like fueling ships and planes. One way to solve those problems: Use solar power to create hydrogen,…

  • Get Happier, Help Others: Some Good Ideas About Giving

    It’s the season of giving: colorful paper and shiny bows, sure, and charitable giving, too. In this special episode, Jacob Goldstein, the host of What’s Your Problem, gets smart about donating. Did you know that…

  • Can Hot Bricks Save the World? (The Solar Era, Part 2)

    This is the second of three episodes about the solar-power revolution. Last week, we talked about how solar power got so cheap. This week, we’re talking with someone who is building giant plants around the…