Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

Alan Alda

Learn to connect better with others in every area of your life. Immerse yourself in spirited conversations with people who know how hard it is, and yet how good it feels, to really connect with other people – whether it’s one person, an audience or a whole country. You'll know many of the people in these conversations – they are luminaries in our culture. Some you may not know. But what links them all is their powerful ability to relate and communicate. It's something we need now more than ever. read less

Our Editor's Take

Beloved TV, film, and Broadway actor Alan Alda is serious about science. His main contribution to the subject these days is the Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda podcast. The long-running show illustrates both science and how to explain the topic. Alda hosts many science-related conversationalists. In fact, he spoke with Dr. Anthony Fauci about the novel coronavirus before the public knew it as COVID-19.

Alda is best known for M*A*S*H, but the classic TV show is only one of his many achievements, and his work transcends the arts. A science advocate, he hosted PBS's Scientific American Frontiers for 15 years. He then cofounded the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University. He currently remains on the center's advisory board. Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda helps expand his conversations on science.

The actor is also an author. And this podcast has the same theme as one of Alda's best-selling books. That title was If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look On My Face? The Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda podcast explains scientific topics. But it does it in an understandable way. It's about communication as well as science. So the show also brings on many guests who are not scientists. And they're all fascinating, be they actors, authors, journalists, or Supreme Court justices. Alda's beloved stature in his community makes it easy for him to secure exciting guests for the podcast.

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda debuted in 2018. New episodes of the podcast come out each week. Listeners interested in science, communication, or fascinating conversations may enjoy this show.

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Society & CultureSociety & Culture

Play Trailer

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 16 trailer

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 16 trailer

Alan and Executive Producer Graham Chedd chat about and play excerpts from Alan's conversations with some of the guests in the new season, beginning next week. Guests include actor Michael Keaton, poet Billy Collins, and astronaut (and space oddity) Chris Hadfield.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/clearandvivid

Episodes

Rebecca Boyle: Moonstruck

Rebecca Boyle: Moonstruck

We exist because of the moon. Rebecca Boyle relates the amazing story of how the moon, born of a cataclysmic collision with an infant earth, has shaped our history, our evolution, and even our very existence.

Doris Kearns Goodwin: In the Rooms Where it Happened

Doris Kearns Goodwin: In the Rooms Where it Happened

Her new book tracks the momentous events of the 1960s when her husband, Dick Goodwin, worked closely with both JFK and LBJ, and Doris worked with LBJ, as the two very different presidents shaped the future.

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 25 trailer

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 25 trailer

Alan and Executive Producer Graham Chedd chat about and play excerpts from Alan's conversations with some of the guests in the new season, beginning next week. Guests include newspaper editor Adam Moss; science journalist Rebecca Boyle; and writers Kelly and Zach Weinersmith.

Stephen Dubner: Feynman on Our Mind

Stephen Dubner: Feynman on Our Mind

Stephen Dubner, host of Freakonomics Radio, has long been fascinated by the great physicist Richard Feynman. As has Alan. Stephen has devoted a year to making a remarkable podcast series on Feynman, and Alan has played Feynman on the stage for a year. They compare notes on what they’ve come to learn about him.

Remembering Frans de Waal

Remembering Frans de Waal

In this special episode of Clear and Vivid we reflect on Frans’ life-long commitment to revealing how much we humans have in common with our primate cousins.

Justice Stephen Breyer: Understanding What They Meant

Justice Stephen Breyer: Understanding What They Meant

When interpreting the Constitution, the dangers of relying solely on the words and what they meant at the time, without taking into account the purpose and values expressed in those words.

Shohini Ghose: Women’s Time and Space

Shohini Ghose: Women’s Time and Space

A leading physicist herself, Shohini Ghose has wonderful stories about the trials and triumphs of the many mostly unsung women whose work helped open up the universe.

Tali Sharot: Take Another Look

Tali Sharot: Take Another Look

We can get used to things to the point where even something we once thought wonderful can lose its luster. More sinister, we can also get used to the drip, drip of falsehoods till we become dulled to their danger. How to overcome habituation, and even take advantage of it.

Keith Houston: There’s More to Writing Than Words.

Keith Houston: There’s More to Writing Than Words.

The intriguing stories behind the often weird and baffling origins of punctuation and other symbols we use to communicate. And it’s not just commas, colons and periods. There are pilcrows, octothorps, interrobangs and a whole menagerie more.

Terry Greiss: Acting to Connect

Terry Greiss: Acting to Connect

The Irondale Ensemble Project, a theater company rooted in improvisation, created a program to help police and community build trust and mutual understanding through theater games.

Robert Sapolsky: You Have No Choice

Robert Sapolsky: You Have No Choice

You may think you were free to choose that chocolate ice cream over the vanilla. But maybe the choice was made for you before you were even born – that the free will you believe you are exercising in your everyday decisions is an illusion.

Tom Hanks: Making a Book About Making a Movie

Tom Hanks: Making a Book About Making a Movie

And what a book it is, a rich sprawling novel called The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece, which Tom himself describes as a “primer on the long slog of bringing an idea from somebody’s head to a theater near you.”

Paul Bloom: Can AI be Moral?

Paul Bloom: Can AI be Moral?

Why can’t AI bots be made to be good, to be moral, so they’ll help us and not do harmful or terrible things? But just whose moral values would we want them to have? And what if they become too moral?

Eric Schmidt: AI: The Good, the Bad and the Scary.

Eric Schmidt: AI: The Good, the Bad and the Scary.

He was for many years the CEO of Google where he had a bird’s eye view of the dramatic evolution of artificial intelligence. And while he is alarmed by the many dangers of AI, especially its ability to create fake people in this election year, he is also enthusiastic about the huge opportunities he sees for AI benefitting medicine, education and the tackling of global problems like climate change.

Fei-Fei Li: The Godmother of AI

Fei-Fei Li: The Godmother of AI

She earned that unofficial title from her peers through her pioneering work harvesting big data to power AI, leading to the recent breakthroughs such as ChatGPT and its many successors. Her personal story is inspiring, from her childhood in China to risking her scientific career on a research gamble that might well have failed. And like a real godmother she now feels responsible for the revolution she helped launch.

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 24 trailer

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 24 trailer

Alan and Executive Producer Graham Chedd chat about and play excerpts from Alan's conversations with some of the guests in the new season, beginning next week. Guests include computer scientist Fei-Fei Li; former CEO of Google Eric Schmidt; and actor Tom Hanks.

Cynthia Breazeal: Her Robots Have Warmth!

Cynthia Breazeal: Her Robots Have Warmth!

Their social, communicative and emotional skills allow her robots to seamlessly collaborate with us. A pioneer in the field of social robotics, Cynthia Breazeal is now turning her focus to ensuring we understand the limits and risks of the artificial intelligence that powers those robots – that we become “AI literate.”

Abraham Amiri: From Afghanistan to the Stars

Abraham Amiri: From Afghanistan to the Stars

An unquenchable passion for astronomy born from gazing at the stars from a rooftop as a child led to his setting up a nationwide program in astronomy in Afghanistan. Escaping the wrath of the Taliban for the sin of teaching young women about the universe, he is now a graduate student at UCLA.

Steve Inskeep: Lessons from Lincoln

Steve Inskeep: Lessons from Lincoln

A new book takes a fresh look at Abraham Lincoln’s life by recounting sixteen face-to-face encounters Lincoln had with people who differed with him, sometimes vehemently. The book not only reveals his skills as a master politician in a deeply divisive time, but also has lessons for today.

Leslie Odom Jr: Bursting Out

Leslie Odom Jr: Bursting Out

A Tony winner for his performance as Aaron Burr in Hamilton, he is now starring on Broadway in the hit play Purlie Victorious. One of the secrets to his success: letting go.