Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Interdisciplinary math and science deep-dives • AI/ML foundations, ethics, fraud, bias • intelligence, consciousness, brain organoids • physics: quantum, black holes, energy, time • networks, epidemiology • cryptography, measurement standards • math with art/music/economics
This podcast explores science, technology, engineering, AI, and mathematics through the unifying idea that quantitative and logical structures shape how the world works and how modern systems make decisions. Across conversations with researchers, authors, and technical practitioners, it connects core mathematical concepts to real phenomena, ranging from foundational physics and cosmology to biology, materials, and measurement science. Listeners can expect explanations of how models are built and validated, why definitions and assumptions matter, and how uncertainty, evidence, and standards influence what we consider reliable knowledge.
A recurring theme is the interaction between mathematics and computation: how algorithms and machine learning systems are constructed, what their limitations are, and how they can be audited or verified. The show frequently addresses AI ethics and technology risks, including bias, privacy, fraud and impersonation, and culturally embedded assumptions in design. It also examines comparisons between human and machine intelligence, touching on questions of emergence, consciousness, and what “intelligence” means in nature.
Alongside contemporary AI topics, the podcast returns to enduring scientific questions—black holes, quantum mechanics, time, energy, and the practical infrastructure of precision measurement. It also highlights applied math in society, such as networks, epidemiology, economics, pricing and incentives, and the ways metrics and scoring systems can reshape behavior. Interdisciplinary episodes link mathematical structure to art and perception as well, including music, graphics, and creative practice, emphasizing how patterns and abstraction move between technical and human contexts.
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Episodes:
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91. Brain Organelles, AI, and Other Scary Science - An Interview with GT (Part 2)
2024-Apr-04
31 minutes
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76: Joule Pay for This! (Energy)
2023-Jan-15
66 minutes
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75: Existential Physics with Sabine Hossenfelder (Author Interview)
2022-Oct-13
41 minutes
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74: Lights, Camera, Action! (3D Computer Graphics: Part I)
2022-Jun-19
42 minutes
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73: Materialism: a Material Science Podcast Podcast Episode (Interview with Taylor Sparks)
2022-May-28
55 minutes
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31: Into the Abyss (Part Two; Black Holes)
2018-Aug-23
56 minutes
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30: The Abyss (Part One; Black Holes)
2018-Aug-02
51 minutes
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29: War
2018-Jul-14
34 minutes
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27: Peer Pressure (Cellular Automata)
2018-May-14
51 minutes
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25: Pandemic Panic (Epidemiology)
2018-Apr-13
44 minutes
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90. LEAN Theorem Provers used to model Physics and Chemistry
2024-Mar-16
47 minutes
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89. Brain Organelles, AI, and the Other Scary Science - An Interview with GT (Part I)
2024-Mar-05
30 minutes
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88. Can OpenAi's SORA learn and model real-world physics? (Part 1 of n)
2024-Feb-27
34 minutes
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87. OpenAi SORA, Physics-Informed ML, and a.i. Fraud- Oh My!
2024-Feb-20
36 minutes
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86. Math, Music, and Artificial Intelligence - Levi McClain Interview (Final Part)
2024-Feb-18
28 minutes
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85. Math, Music, Neuroscience, and Fear - an Interview with Musician Levi McClain
2024-Feb-13
33 minutes
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84. (Part 2) Intelligence in Nature v. Machine Learning - an Interview with Brit Cruise
2024-Feb-06
45 minutes
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83. Intelligence in Nature v. Machine Learning-An Interview with Brit Cruise - Part 1 of 2
2024-Jan-30
36 minutes
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The Power of Connection in Math: Insights from Hortensia Soto
2026-Mar-24
40 minutes
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Florence Nightingale: Data-Driven Reformer of Medicine
2026-Mar-20
12 minutes
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The Math Behind Gerrymandering, Fair Representation, and Politics with Karen Saxe
2026-Mar-17
35 minutes
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Anna Schwartz: The Economist Who Changed How We Study Economies
2026-Mar-13
14 minutes
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Disappearing Grants, Genius Grants, and the AI Proofs with Lauren K. Williams
2026-Mar-11
25 minutes
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Priscilla Wakefield: Empowering Women Through Financial Literacy
2026-Mar-06
9 minutes
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Why Mathematicians Must Speak Up with Bryna Kra
2026-Mar-03
31 minutes
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Reaching for the Extreme with Ian Stewart
2026-Feb-24
43 minutes
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Rethinking Mathematical Value in the Age of AI with Ravi Vakil
2026-Feb-17
42 minutes
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AI, Pi, Dynamic Pricing, and Math History Lessons
2026-Feb-10
26 minutes
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A New Chapter of Breaking Math: Get to Know Your Hosts
2026-Feb-03
39 minutes
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The Elements of Power: Supply Chains, Technology, and Energy with Nicolas Niarchos
2026-Jan-21
40 minutes
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The Score: Gamifying the Nature of Metrics with Thi Nguyen
2026-Jan-14
57 minutes
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The Art of Physics: Bridging Science and Creativity with Ronald Gamble
2026-Jan-13
48 minutes
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Intelligent Systems: Digital Culture Shock
2025-Nov-19
38 minutes
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Who is Francis Crick?
2025-Nov-11
50 minutes
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Mathematics and Humanity: The Untold Stories of the Great Math War
2025-Nov-04
43 minutes
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The Future of Physics: Portals to a New Reality
2025-Oct-28
48 minutes
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AI vs Human Intelligence: The Emergent Mind
2025-Oct-25
50 minutes
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The Giant Leap
2025-Oct-21
56 minutes
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Dinosaurs with Rachel Ignotofsky
2025-Oct-14
30 minutes
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Charlatans with Quico Toro
2025-Oct-07
39 minutes
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Economica with Victoria Bateman
2025-Sep-30
64 minutes
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Blueprints with Marcus du Sautoy
2025-Sep-09
59 minutes
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Unequal with Eugenia Cheng
2025-Sep-05
46 minutes
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Breaking Math: When Math Meets a Technology Glitch
2025-Aug-28
4 minutes
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Hate the Game
2025-Aug-19
34 minutes
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Dots and Lines: Hidden Networks
2025-Aug-12
37 minutes
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Robin Hood Math
2025-Aug-05
32 minutes
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What are Swim Training Patterns?
2025-Jul-29
45 minutes
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AI Ethics: Algorithms Go To College
2025-Jul-22
11 minutes
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Random Shuffle Isn't Random At All
2025-Jul-08
8 minutes
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Algorithms & AI Simplified - The Not So Mathy Version
2025-Jul-01
9 minutes
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What is Cryptography?
2025-Jun-24
40 minutes
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We Live in a Radioactive World: What is Dosimetry?
2025-Jun-17
32 minutes
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What is Life?
2025-Jun-10
41 minutes
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Fire Science: What are Photoacoustic Measurements?
2025-Jun-03
49 minutes
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What is Time?
2025-Feb-26
71 minutes
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What is Measurement?
2025-Feb-18
7 minutes
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How Analytics Can Revolutionize Affordable Energy
2024-Nov-19
41 minutes
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What is Chaos Theory?
2024-Nov-12
13 minutes
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AI in the Lab: How GPT-4 is Changing Molecules and Models
2024-Nov-05
12 minutes
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The Fluid Dynamics of Sheep
2024-Oct-29
15 minutes
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The Discovery of the Largest Prime Number: M136279841
2024-Oct-22
8 minutes
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Exploring GFlowNets and AI-Driven Material Discovery for Carbon Capture
2024-Oct-22
10 minutes
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Victorian Era Spooky Scientists & Paranormal Activity
2024-Oct-15
23 minutes
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Is AI Conscious?
2024-Oct-08
11 minutes
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Molecular dynamics simulation with GFlowNets: machine learning the importance of energy estimators in computational chemistry and drug discovery
2024-Oct-01
9 minutes
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Do Plants Know Math?
2024-Sep-24
56 minutes
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Mapmatics: A Mathematician's Guide to Navigating the World with Maps with Paulina Rowinska
2024-Sep-17
57 minutes
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The Intentional Engineer (with Jeff Perry)
2024-Sep-10
55 minutes
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Math for English Majors with Ben Orlin
2024-Sep-03
58 minutes
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What is Data Visualization? From the Expert Behind PolicyViz
2024-Aug-27
53 minutes
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Love Triangle and Other Maths (with Matt Parker)
2024-Aug-20
59 minutes
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The Black Hole Heist
2024-Aug-16
12 minutes
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Black Holes: The Abyss Part 3
2024-Aug-13
77 minutes
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Black Holes: The Abyss Part 2
2024-Aug-06
56 minutes
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Black Holes: The Abyss Part 1
2024-Jul-30
52 minutes
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What are Journal Rankings? The basics: a minisode.
2024-Jul-23
12 minutes
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Why Machines Learn: The Math Behind AI
2024-Jul-16
40 minutes
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The Intersection of Mathematics and Democracy
2024-Jul-09
62 minutes
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Math Lounge: Celebrating 101 Episodes
2024-Jul-02
47 minutes
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Minisode: Absolutely Nothing
2024-Jun-18
19 minutes
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Can We Survive on Mars? Hot Tips with Zach Weinersmith (Part 2)
2024-May-28
34 minutes
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Can We Survive on Mars? Hot Tips with Zach Weinersmith
2024-May-21
32 minutes
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What's the Use? Interview with Professor Ian Stewart
2024-May-14
44 minutes
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Bayes' Theorem Explains It All: An Interview with Tom Chivers
2024-May-07
49 minutes
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Interview with Steve Nadis, Co-author of 'Gravity of Math'
2024-Apr-30
52 minutes
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The 10,000 Year Problem (feat. David Gibson of Ray Kitty Creation Workship)
2024-Apr-23
34 minutes
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The Mathematical Heart of Games Explored with Prof. du Sautoy
2024-Apr-16
74 minutes
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82. A.I. and Materials Discovery - an Interview with Taylor Sparks
2024-Jan-21
17 minutes
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In Memory of Sofia Baca, Cofounder and cohost of Breaking Math
2024-Jan-11
48 minutes
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81: Correct. Now Try Again (Multiple Approaches to the Same Problem)
2023-Jul-24
37 minutes
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80: Physical Dimension (Dimensional Analysis)
2023-Jun-26
35 minutes
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79: 1 2 3 (Counting)
2023-Jun-08
47 minutes
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78: Perpetual Notion (Entropy and Thermodynamics)
2023-May-09
31 minutes
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77: An Interview with Christopher Roblesz of MathNMore
2023-Feb-28
55 minutes
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72: The Lifestyles of the Mathematical and Famous (an Interview with Author Robert Black)
2022-May-15
50 minutes
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71: What's the Matter? An Interview with Chris Cogswell of the Mad Scientist Podcast (Material Science)
2022-Apr-12
55 minutes
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70.1: Episode 70.1 of Breaking Math Podcast (Self-Reference)
2022-Mar-20
46 minutes
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70: This Episode Intentionally Left Blank
2022-Mar-19
46 minutes
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69: An Interview with Michael Brooks, Author of "The Art of More: How Mathematics Created Civilization"
2022-Jan-23
62 minutes
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P12: O My God (Big O Notation)
2022-Jan-04
22 minutes
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68: LOL!!! SO RANDOM (Random Variables)
2021-Dec-23
34 minutes
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67: Wrath of Math (Mathematics Used Unwisely)
2021-Dec-09
23 minutes
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P11: Feeling Lucky? (Probability and Intuition)
2021-Nov-30
30 minutes
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66: Hayhoe, Let's Go! (An Interview With Climate Scientist Katharine Hayhoe)
2021-Nov-21
71 minutes
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P10: Chivalry is Dead (Knights and Knaves #1)
2021-Nov-14
18 minutes
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65: An Interview with Author Ian Stewart (Book About Everyday Math)
2021-Oct-24
44 minutes
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64: What Projection Is This? (Map Projections)
2021-Sep-29
47 minutes
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RR36: The Most Boring Episode Ever (Rerun: Math Games)
2021-Sep-19
49 minutes
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63: Broken Voting Systems (Voting Systems and Paradoxes)
2021-Sep-05
33 minutes
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62: The Atom Bomb of Information Operations (An Interview with John Fuisz of Veriphix)
2021-Aug-22
45 minutes
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61: Look at this Graph! (Graph Theory)
2021-Apr-25
29 minutes
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P9: Give or Take (Back-of-the-Envelope Estimates / Fermi Problems)
2021-Apr-19
31 minutes
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60: HAMILTON! [But Not the Musical] (Quaternions)
2021-Apr-03
29 minutes
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59: A Good Source of Fibers (Fiber Bundles)
2021-Mar-21
42 minutes
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58: Bringing Curvy Back (Gaussian Curvature)
2021-Mar-03
42 minutes
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P8: Tangent Tango (Morikawa's Recently Solved Problem)
2021-Feb-25
19 minutes
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P7: Root for Squares (Irrationality of the Square Root of Two)
2021-Feb-07
14 minutes
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57: You Said How Much?! (Measure Theory)
2021-Feb-01
30 minutes
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P6: How Many Angles in a Circle? (Curvature; Euclidean Geometry)
2021-Jan-28
28 minutes
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56: More Sheep than You Can Count (Transfinite Cardinal Numbers)
2021-Jan-24
34 minutes
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55: Order in the Court (Transfinite Ordinal Numbers)
2021-Jan-14
31 minutes
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54: Oodles (Large Numbers)
2020-Dec-21
27 minutes
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53: Big Brain Time (An Interview with Peter Zeidman from the UCL Institute of Neurology)
2020-Dec-11
43 minutes
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52: Round (Circles and Spheres)
2020-Dec-05
30 minutes
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P5: All Your Base Are Belong to Us (Fractional Base Proof)
2020-Nov-26
13 minutes
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51: Episode "-2,0,1" (Bases; Exotic Bases)
2020-Nov-15
34 minutes
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50: Episode "101" (Bases)
2020-Aug-31
54 minutes
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49: Thinking Machines II (Techniques in Artificial Intelligence)
2020-May-26
57 minutes
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48: Thinking Machines (Philosophical Basis of Artificial Intelligence)
2020-May-18
54 minutes
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P4: Go with the Flow (Conceptual Calculus: Related Rates of Change)
2020-Mar-10
36 minutes
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47: Blast to the Past (Retrocausality)
2020-Feb-29
29 minutes
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P3: Radiativeforcenado (Radiative Forcing)
2020-Feb-03
39 minutes
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46: Earth Irradiated (the Greenhouse Effect)
2020-Jan-20
41 minutes
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45: Climate Denialism and Cranky Uncles (Interview with John Cook of Skeptical Science)
2019-Dec-10
25 minutes
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44: Vestigial Math (Math That Is Not Used like It Used to Be)
2019-Nov-03
36 minutes
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P2: Walk the Dog (Calculus: Chain Rule)
2019-Oct-30
18 minutes
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43: Interview II with Author Ben Orlin (Change is the Only Constant: the Wisdom of Calculus in a Madcap World)
2019-Oct-23
42 minutes
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P1: Peano Addition
2019-Sep-29
37 minutes
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42: Maybe? (Probability and Statistics)
2019-Aug-15
32 minutes
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41: Reality Is More Than Complex (Group Theory and Physics)
2019-Jul-29
54 minutes
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39: Syntax Matters: Syntax... Matters? (Formal Grammar)
2019-May-29
33 minutes
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38: The Great Stratagem Heist (Game Theory: Iterated Elimination of Dominated Strategies)
2019-Apr-23
32 minutes
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37: The One Where They Parody Saw [audio fixed again] (Game Theory)
2019-Feb-25
39 minutes
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36: The Most Boring Episode Ever. (Math Games)
2018-Nov-23
46 minutes
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35: Please Be Discrete (Discrete Math)
2018-Nov-05
34 minutes
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34: An Interview with Mathbot.com's JW Weatherman
2018-Oct-20
39 minutes
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33: Interview with Math with Bad Drawings (Ben Orlin)
2018-Oct-03
40 minutes
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32X: Black Hole Heist (Comedy Sketch)
2018-Sep-23
12 minutes
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32: Gaze into the Abyss (Part Three; Black Holes)
2018-Sep-23
77 minutes
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28: Bell's Infamous Theorem (Bell's Theorem)
2018-Jun-19
34 minutes
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26: Infinity Shades of Grey (Paradox)
2018-Apr-26
48 minutes
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24: Language and Entropy (Information Theory in Language)
2018-Mar-07
44 minutes
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23: Don't Touch My Circles! (Geometry)
2018-Jan-15
52 minutes
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22: Incomplet (Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid: Chapter IV Discussion)
2017-Dec-23
56 minutes
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21: Einstein's Biggest Idea (General Relativity)
2017-Dec-04
40 minutes
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20: Rational (Ratios)
2017-Nov-18
40 minutes
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19: Tune of the Hickory Stick (Beginning to Intermediate Math Education)
2017-Nov-07
39 minutes
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18: Frequency (Fourier and Related Analyses)
2017-Oct-11
44 minutes
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17: Navier Stoked (Vector Calculus and Navier-Stokes Equations)
2017-Oct-05
60 minutes
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BFNB2: Thought for Food (Discussion about Learning)
2017-Sep-19
71 minutes
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BFNB1: Food for Thought (Discussion about Learning)
2017-Sep-16
35 minutes
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Minisode 0.6: Four Problems
2017-Aug-18
26 minutes
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15: Consciousness
2017-Jul-30
60 minutes
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Minisode 0.5: ___forNon___
2017-Jul-20
14 minutes
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14: Artificial Thought (Neural Networks)
2017-Jul-11
65 minutes
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13: Math and Prison Riots (Interview with Frank Salas)
2017-Jun-27
49 minutes
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12: Math Factory (Algorithms)
2017-Jun-13
53 minutes
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11: A Culture of Hacking (Hacker Culture)
2017-May-31
62 minutes
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10: Cryptomath (Cryptography)
2017-May-16
76 minutes
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9: Humanity 2.0 (Transhumanism)
2017-May-02
52 minutes
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Minisode 0.4: Comin' Up Next
2017-May-01
16 minutes
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Minisode 0.3: Lights, Camera, Action!
2017-Apr-20
20 minutes
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8: Evolution and Engineering (Genetic Algorithms)
2017-Apr-18
57 minutes
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Minisode 0.2: What's Up, Bangalore?
2017-Apr-10
29 minutes
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7: QED? Prove it. (Proofs)
2017-Apr-04
44 minutes
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Minisode 0.1: Hypercubes and Other Stranger Things
2017-Apr-01
24 minutes
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6: Word (Linguistics)
2017-Mar-21
49 minutes
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5: Language of the Universe (Relationship Between Physics and Math)
2017-Mar-07
48 minutes
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4: Digital Evolution (Digital Computing)
2017-Feb-21
52 minutes
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3: TMI (Information Theory)
2017-Feb-07
48 minutes
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2: Wreaking Chaos (Chaos Theory)
2017-Feb-07
51 minutes
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1: Forbidden Formulas (Elitism in Math)
2017-Feb-07
59 minutes
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