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About Matthew Jordan

My name is Matthew Jordan, and I'm a university instructor, science communicator, and funk musician. My central belief is that everyone should have access to important ideas, presented in a simple and unpretentious way. I teach courses at McMaster University and run Interact, a Fellowship program for young technologists. I spend the rest of my time zooming through audiobooks, doing improv comedy, watching basketball, solving crosswords, playing chess, and doing long bike rides.

Matthew Jordan is a university instructor, funk musician, and clear writing enthusiast. He studies the history of science and technology, driven by the belief that we must understand the past in order to improve the future.

NBN Episodes hosted by Matthew:

Science November 2, 2022

"Well, Doc, You're In"

Freeman Dyson’s Journey through the Universe

David Kaiser

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
Freeman Dyson (1923–2020)—renowned scientist, visionary, and iconoclast—helped invent modern physics. Not bound by disciplinary divisions, he went on to explore foundational topics in mathematics, astrophysics, and the origin of life …
Science, Technology, and Society March 21, 2022

The Atlas of AI

Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence

Kate Crawford

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
What happens when artificial intelligence saturates political life and depletes the planet? How is AI shaping our understanding of ourselves and our societies? In The Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and …
Psychology March 3, 2022

The Power of Us

Harnessing Our Shared Identities to Improve Performance, Increase Cooperation, and Promote Social Harmony

Jay J. Van Bavel and Dominic J. Packer

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
If you're like most people, you probably believe that your identity is stable. But in fact, your identity is constantly changing—often outside your conscious awareness and sometimes even against your …
Science, Technology, and Society July 20, 2021

Seeing Silicon Valley

Life Inside a Fraying America

Mary Beth Meehan and Fred Turner

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
It’s hard to imagine a place more central to American mythology today than Silicon Valley. To outsiders, the region glitters with the promise of extraordinary wealth and innovation. But behind …
Science July 12, 2021

The Social Instinct

How Cooperation Shaped the World

Nichola Raihani

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
Cooperation is the means by which life arose in the first place. It’s how we progressed through scale and complexity, from free-floating strands of genetic material, to nation states. But …
Science, Technology, and Society July 9, 2021

Your Computer Is on Fire

Thomas D. Mullaney, Benjamin Peters, Mar Hicks, and Kavita Philip

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
This book sounds an alarm: after decades of being lulled into complacency by narratives of technological utopianism and neutrality, people are waking up to the large-scale consequences of Silicon Valley–led …
Science June 9, 2021

Making Art Work

How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture

W. Patrick Mccray

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
Artwork as opposed to experiment? Engineer versus artist? We often see two different cultural realms separated by impervious walls. But some fifty years ago, the borders between technology and art …
Science, Technology, and Society February 24, 2021

The Innovation Delusion

How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most

Lee Vinsel and Andrew L. Russell

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
It’s hard to avoid innovation these days. Nearly every product gets marketed as being disruptive, whether it’s genuinely a new invention or just a new toothbrush. But in this manifesto …
Science October 9, 2020

Rebel Cell

Cancer, Evolution, and the New Science of Life's Oldest Betrayal

Kat Arney

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
Cancer exists in nearly every animal and has afflicted humans as long as our species has walked the earth. In Rebel Cell: Cancer, Evolution, and the New Science of Life's …
Science September 11, 2020

How You Say It

Why You Talk the Way You Do - And What It Says About You

Katherine Kinzler

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
We gravitate toward people like us; it's human nature. Race, class, and gender shape our social identities, and thus who we perceive as "like us" or "not like us". But …
Science August 27, 2020

How to Argue With a Racist

What Our Genes Do (and Don’t) Say About Human Difference

Adam Rutherford

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
Racist pseudoscience has become so commonplace that it can be hard to spot. But its toxic effects on society are plain to see—feeding nationalism, fueling hatred, endangering lives, and corroding …
Science, Technology, and Society August 12, 2020

Working in Public

The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software

Nadia Eghbal

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
Open source is the once-radical idea that code should be freely available to everyone. Open-source software was once an optimistic model for public collaboration, but is now a near-universal standard …
Science August 10, 2020

Science Fictions

Exposing Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype in Science

Stuart Ritchie

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
So much relies on science. But what if science itself can’t be relied on? In Science Fictions: Exposing Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype in Science (Penguin Books, 2020), Stuart Ritchie …
British Studies August 4, 2020

Arts and Minds

How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation

Anton Howes

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
Over the past 300 years, The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce has tried to improve British life in every way imaginable. It has sought to …
Science July 29, 2020

The 100% Solution

A Plan for Solving Climate Change

Solomon Goldstein-Rose

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
At age 26, Solomon Goldstein-Rose has already spent more time thinking about climate change than most of us will in our lifetimes. He’s been a climate activist since age 11 …
Science July 21, 2020

The State of Science

What the Future Holds and the Scientists Making It Happen

Marc Zimmer

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
New research and innovations in the field of science are leading to life-changing and world-altering discoveries like never before. What does the horizon of science look like? Who are the …
Science, Technology, and Society July 13, 2020

Quantum Legacies

Dispatches from an Uncertain World

David Kaiser

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
David Kaiser is a truly unique scholar: he is simultaneously a physics researcher and a historian of science whose writing beautifully melds the past and future of science. As a …