It’s easy to take growth for granted, for it to seem expected, inevitable even. Every person starts out as a baby and grows up. Plants grow from seeds into food. The economy grows. That stack of mail on your table grows. But why does anything grow the way that it does? In this hour, we go from the Alaska State Fair, to a kitchen in Brooklyn, to the deep sea, to ancient India, to South Korea, and lots of places in between, to investigate this question, and uncover the many forces that drive growth, sometimes wondrous, sometimes terrifying, and sometimes surprisingly, unnervingly fragile.
Special thanks to Elie Tanaka, Keith Devlin, Deven Patel, Chris Gole, James Raymo and Jessica Savage
**EPISODE CREDITS: **Reported by - Matt Kielty, Becca Bressler, Pat Walters, Sindhu Gnanasambandun, Annie McEwen, Simon Adlerwith help from - Rae MondoProduced by - Matt Kielty, Becca Bressler, Pat Walters, Sindhu Gnanasambandun, Annie McEwen, Simon AdlerSound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloomwith mixing help from - Jeremy BloomFact-checking by - Emily Krieger and Natalie Middletonand Edited by - Pat Walters
**EPISODE CITATIONS:**Audio:“The Joy of Why,” )(https://www.quantamagazine.org/tag/the-joy-of-why/)) Steve Strogatz’s podcast.
Articles:“The End of Children,”)(https://zpr.io/WBdg6bi8xwnr)) The New Yorker, by Gideon Lewis-Kraus
Books:Finding Fibonacci) (https://zpr.io/3EjviAttUFke)) by Keith DevlinDo Plants Know Math) (https://zpr.io/bfbTZDJ8ehx5)) by Chris Gole
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