Breaking Math Podcast
Breaking Math is a deep-dive science, technology, engineering, AI, and mathematics podcast that explores the world through the lens of logic, patterns, and critical thinking. Hosted by Autumn Phaneuf, an expert in industrial engineering, operations research and applied mathematics, and Gabriel Hesch, an electrical engineer (host from 2016-2024) with a passion for mathematical clarity, the show is dedicated to uncovering the mathematical structures behind science, engineering, technology, and the systems that shape our future.
What began as a conversation about math as a pure and elegant discipline has evolved into a platform for bold, interdisciplinary dialogue. Each episode of Breaking Math takes listeners on an intellectual journey—whether it’s into the strange beauty of chaos theory, the ethical dilemmas of AI, the deep structures of biological evolution, or the thermodynamics of black holes. Along the way, Autumn and Gabriel interview leading thinkers and working scientists from across the spectrum: computer scientists, quantum physicists, chemists, philosophers, neuroscientists, and more.
But this isn’t just a podcast about equations—it’s a show about how mathematics influences the way we think, create, build, and understand. Breaking Math pushes back against the idea that STEM belongs behind a paywall or an academic podium. It’s for the curious, the critical, the creative—for anyone who believes that ideas should be rigorous, accessible, and infused with wonder.
If you've ever wondered:
* What’s the math behind machine learning?
* How do we quantify uncertainty in climate models?
* Can consciousness be described in AI?
* Why does beauty matter in an equation?
Then you’re in the right place.
At its heart, Breaking Math is about building bridges—between disciplines, between experts and the public, and between the abstract world of mathematics and the messy, magnificent reality we live in. With humor, clarity, and deep respect for complexity, Autumn and Gabriel invite you to rethink what math can be—and how it can help us shape a better future.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Website: https://breakingmath.io [https://breakingmath.io/]
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/breakingmathmedia
Email: [email protected]
- Update frequency
- every 10 days
- Average duration
- 40 minutes
- Episodes
- 157
- Years Active
- 2017 - 2025
47: Blast to the Past (Retrocausality)
Time is something that everyone has an idea of, but is hard to describe. Roughly, the arrow of time is the same as the arrow of causality. However, what happens when that is not the case? It is so of…
P3: Radiativeforcenado (Radiative Forcing)
Learn more about radiative forcing, the environment, and how global temperature changes with atmospheric absorption with this Problem Episode about you walking your (perhaps fictional?) dog around a …
46: Earth Irradiated (the Greenhouse Effect)
Since time immemorial, blacksmiths have known that the hotter metal gets, the more it glows: it starts out red, then gets yellower, and then eventually white. In 1900, Max Planck discovered the relat…
45: Climate Denialism and Cranky Uncles (Interview with John Cook of Skeptical Science)
Climate change is an issue that has become frighteningly more relevant in recent years, and because of special interests, the field has become muddied with climate change deniers who use dishonest ta…
44: Vestigial Math (Math That Is Not Used like It Used to Be)
Mathematics, like any intellectual pursuit, is a constantly-evolving field; and, like any evolving field, there are both new beginnings and sudden unexpected twists, and things take on both new forms…
P2: Walk the Dog (Calculus: Chain Rule)
Learn more about calculus, derivatives, and the chain rule with this Problem Episode about you walking your (perhaps fictional?) dog around a park.
This episode is distributed under a CC BY-SA license…
43: Interview II with Author Ben Orlin (Change is the Only Constant: the Wisdom of Calculus in a Madcap World)
Ben Orlin has been a guest on the show before. He got famous with a blog called 'Math With Bad Drawings", which is what it says on the tin: he teaches mathematics using his humble drawing skills. His…
P1: Peano Addition
This episode is distribut…
42: Maybe? (Probability and Statistics)
Statistics is a field that is considered boring by a lot of people, including a huge amount of mathematicians. This may be because the history of statistics starts in a sort of humdrum way: collectin…
41: Reality Is More Than Complex (Group Theory and Physics)
Children who are being taught mathematics often balk at the idea of negative numbers, thinking them to be fictional entities, and often only learn later that they are useful for expressing opposite e…
39: Syntax Matters: Syntax... Matters? (Formal Grammar)
We communicate every day through languages; not only human languages, but other things that could be classified as languages such as internet protocols, or even the structure of business transactions…
38: The Great Stratagem Heist (Game Theory: Iterated Elimination of Dominated Strategies)
Game theory is all about decision-making and how it is impacted by choice of strategy, and a strategy is a decision that is influenced not only by the choice of the decision-maker, but one or more si…
![37: The One Where They Parody Saw [audio fixed again] (Game Theory)](https://media.zencastr.com/image-files/614e1812aa193a007ec6f40f/38e14f4c-588e-4508-bf11-8f775bdf7279.jpg)
37: The One Where They Parody Saw [audio fixed again] (Game Theory)
Hello listeners. You don't know me, but I know you. I want to play a game. In your ears are two earbuds. Connected to the earbuds are a podcast playing an episode about game theory. Hosting that podc…
36: The Most Boring Episode Ever. (Math Games)
Math is a gravely serious topic which has been traditionally been done by stodgy people behind closed doors, and it cannot ever be taken lightly. Those who have fun with mathematics mock science, med…
35: Please Be Discrete (Discrete Math)
Centuries ago, there began something of a curiosity between mathematicians that didn't really amount to much but some interesting thoughts and cool mathematical theorems. This form of math had to do …
34: An Interview with Mathbot.com's JW Weatherman
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This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The easiest wa…
33: Interview with Math with Bad Drawings (Ben Orlin)
An interview with Ben Orlin, author of the book 'Math with Bad Drawings,' as well as the blog of the same name. The blog can be found at www.mathwithbaddrawings.com.
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This episode is sponsored by
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32X: Black Hole Heist (Comedy Sketch)
The hosts of Breaking Math had too much time on their hands.
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Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/breakingmathpodcast/support
32: Gaze into the Abyss (Part Three; Black Holes)
A lot of the information in this episode of Breaking Math depends on episodes 30 and 31 entitled "The Abyss" and "Into the Abyss" respectively. If you have not listened to those episodes, then we'd h…
31: Into the Abyss (Part Two; Black Holes)
Black holes are objects that seem exotic to us because they have properties that boggle our comparatively mild-mannered minds. These are objects that light cannot escape from, yet glow with the energ…