Cultivator of Understanding
A researcher asking what might come after the book. His work explores media that help ideas become something a reader can remember and use.
Researcher in Tools for Thought & Learning
After work on iOS at Apple and research and development at Khan Academy, Matuschak began independently funded research. His question centres on interfaces that expand what people can think and do.
Why Books Don’t Work challenges a familiar assumption: that following an explanation while reading is enough to make its ideas usable later. It asks what a medium could contribute to the learning itself.
With Michael Nielsen, Matuschak created Quantum Country, an experimental mnemonic medium. Explanations of quantum computing are interleaved with questions and repeated practice.
Their joint essay on transformative tools for thought discusses both the promise and the limits of the experiment. The research value lies in making a concrete system, studying it, and finding better questions to ask.
His public working notes and guide to writing prompts offer ways into the practice behind the research. Ideas can be revised and connected over time; questions can be designed with care.
His current site records a move, from late 2025, into work on Pico while on leave from his independent research. The archive remains a place to explore the developing inquiry and its changes of direction.
Andy Matuschak · Essay
A provocation about the gap between reading an explanation and making it your own.Read the essay2019 · Andy Matuschak & Michael Nielsen
A research agenda grounded in working experiments, open problems and the limits of earlier visions.Read the essayAndy Matuschak · Practical essay
Design questions that help develop understanding through spaced repetition.Read the guideAndy Matuschak & Michael Nielsen · Experimental medium
Read the workAndy Matuschak · Essay on augmented learning
Read the workAndy Matuschak · Essay on malleable software
Read the workAndy Matuschak · Developing ideas over time
Explore the notesAndy Matuschak & Michael Nielsen · Mnemonic medium
An experimental text that combines explanations of quantum computing with memory practice.Try the mediumA platform for memory-system experiments
Explore the project behind experiments in integrating memory practice into reading.Explore OrbitPublic notes · Questions, connections & work in progress
Follow the notes
Bret VictorDifferent experiments in media that expand understanding
Seymour PapertLearning as an active process of making meaning
H. G. WellsReturn to the question of what shared knowledge can make possible