Particles of Thought

Brent Minchew has a plan that could  stop the “Doomsday Glacier” in its tracks, and we don’t even need new technology to do it. The Caltech glaciologist returns to unveil an intervention that could save coasts around the world: refreezing Thwaites Glacier to its own bedrock using passive principles of physics. Brent walks Hakeem through the natural process that slows glaciers down, and lays out a plan to investigate if they can truly deploy it on the world's most precarious glacier.

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Guest Bio:
Brent Minchew is a glaciologist and geophysicist at Caltech, where he leads research on the dynamics of ice sheets and sea -level rise, and Chief Scientist at Arête Glacier Initiative. A former U.S. Marine, he now co-leads efforts to test real-world interventions that could stabilize the world's most vulnerable glaciers.

Brent Minchew is an expert on the glacier that could devastate the world’s coastlines. As a glaciologist at Caltech, he's spent his career tracking Thwaites Glacier, AKA the "Doomsday Glacier." It’s roughly the size of Florida and already losing 50 billion tons of ice a year. Brent joins Hakeem to break down what scientists know – and don’t know – about the glacier that could determine our future. How certain is that “doom,” and how fast could it happen? They nerd out about what happens as glaciers slip into the sea, how satellites can measure glacier movement down to the millimeter from orbit, and how Thwaites might be the single most important glacier on the planet.

Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel.
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Guest Bio:
Brent Minchew is a glaciologist and geophysicist at Caltech, where he leads research on the dynamics of ice sheets and sea -level rise, and Chief Scientist at Arête Glacier Initiative. A former U.S. Marine, he now co-leads efforts to test real-world interventions that could stabilize the world's most vulnerable glaciers.

Jordan Ellenberg tells Hakeem that math isn't just about numbers. It's about everything. The mathematician and bestselling author shares how AI models are trained through trial and error, why geometry secretly governs everything from family trees to statistical correlation, and why uncertainty, not certainty, is the true language of the universe. From new dimensions to hurricanes we can't quite predict, Jordan and Hakeem trace math's fingerprints across physics, language, and daily life in a preview of his upcoming book, Don't Be Too Sure.

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Guest Bio:
Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel.
Jordan Ellenberg is a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, specializing in number theory and arithmetic algebraic geometry. He is the New York Times bestselling author of How Not to Be Wrong and Shape, and his forthcoming book, Don't Be Too Sure, arrives in 2027

Jordan Ellenberg finds mathematical certainty overrated. Calming our fear of the unknown, the mathematician joins Hakeem to explore why math, contrary to popular belief, is less about proof and more about probability. He traces uncertainty's surprisingly recent arrival in mathematical history and its deep ties to quantum physics. Jordan also unpacks the difference between what's unknown and what's fundamentally unknowable, why hurricanes and earthquakes are "certain u
Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel.
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Guest Bio:
Jordan Ellenberg is a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, specializing in number theory and arithmetic algebraic geometry. He is the New York Times bestselling author of How Not to Be Wrong and Shape, and his forthcoming book, Don't Be Too Sure, arrives in 2027.

Jordan Ellenberg says geometry isn’t about shapes. It’s about distance. In a tour of geometry far stranger than anything from high school, the mathematician breaks down how our ancient understanding of triangles evolved into the invisible architecture behind AI, family trees, and human relationships. Minds expand as we ask why the "closeness" between two ideas is a literal angle in a vast multi-dimensional space, and what can a 19th-century novella about a talking square teach us about worlds we'll never see? 
Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel.
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Guest Bio:
Jordan Ellenberg is a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, specializing in number theory and arithmetic algebraic geometry. He is the New York Times bestselling author of How Not to Be Wrong and Shape, and his forthcoming book, Don't Be Too Sure, arrives in 2027.