The Quest

Follow the Quest: an honest, ongoing look at how a theory meets the world, through the people, the process and what is learned along the way.

It is told as a video series, with a written companion here for every episode. A new episode arrives every two months, with a short special edition soon after anything significant.

An open book on a dark wooden desk at night. From its pages rises a glowing hologram of the cosmic web, cyan and violet filaments, above a thin line of five lit markers.
Knowledge Is the QuestA book carries what one person learned to people they will never meet. One of the oldest that survives, the Teachings of Ptahhotep, copied in Egypt nearly four thousand years ago, already says the work is never done: “the barriers of art are not closed, no artist being in possession of the perfection to which he should aspire.” Physics came to the same place. Richard Feynman, in a 1981 BBC interview: “I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.” The Quest is that same search, carried on in public.Illustration, AI-generated

On YouTube

Every episode is published on the institute's YouTube channel. Subscribe there to see each one as it comes out.

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By email

A short note when a new episode is out, with a link to the video and its written companion. Nothing else, and you can leave at any time.

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Episodes

The Series So Far

A new episode every two months, and a short special edition soon after anything significant: a data release, a submission and its answer, a funding decision, or a correction.

1

Setting Out

In production. Where the story starts, and the correction we made before anyone asked.

A single bootprint pressed into grey lunar soil.
Apollo 11, 20 July 1969. NASA

Every episode

The Same Chapters, Every Time

So that anyone can join partway through and know where the story stands.

  • Previously on the QuestWhere the story stands, in a minute.
  • Where we standThe four routes and what changed on each.
  • The main storyThe one thing that moved the Quest since last time.
  • FeatureA story from science, or a contribution from a viewer.
  • PeopleSomeone on the road with us, with their consent.
  • From viewersYour questions answered and your corrections made.
  • What we are waiting forThe next dates.
  • What we learnedNew entries in a running list of things we know now that we did not know at the start.

The process is the drama

Nothing needs to be dressed up. How an idea is questioned, funded, turned away or tested is a story in itself.

Learning, not winning

Every result is reported the same way: as what was learned.

People as they are

Careers, credit and conflict are part of science. We report what is documented, first-hand or public, and offer a reply.

The rules the series follows are set out in the Open Science Policy. Want to help test predictions yourself? Testing volunteers apply through the Members page.