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
30: The Abyss (Part One; Black Holes)
The idea of something that is inescapable, at first glance, seems to violate our sense of freedom. This sense of freedom, for many, seems so intrinsic to our way of seeing the universe that it seems …
29: War
In the United States, the fourth of July is celebrated as a national holiday, where the focus of that holiday is the war that had the end effect of ending England’s colonial influence over the Americ…
28: Bell's Infamous Theorem (Bell's Theorem)
The history of physics as a natural science is filled with examples of when an experiment will demonstrate something or another, but what is often forgotten is the fact that the experiment had to be …
27: Peer Pressure (Cellular Automata)
The fabric of the natural world is an issue of no small contention: philosophers and truth-seekers universally debate about and study the nature of reality, and exist as long as there are observers i…
26: Infinity Shades of Grey (Paradox)
A paradox is characterized either by a logical problem that does not have a single dominant expert solution, or by a set of logical steps that seem to lead somehow from sanity to insanity. This happe…
25: Pandemic Panic (Epidemiology)
The spectre of disease causes untold mayhem, anguish, and desolation. The extent to which this spectre has yielded its power, however, has been massively curtailed in the past century. To understand …
24: Language and Entropy (Information Theory in Language)
Information theory was founded in 1948 by Claude Shannon, and is a way of both qualitatively and quantitatively describing the limits and processes involved in communication. Roughly speaking, when t…
23: Don't Touch My Circles! (Geometry)
In the study of mathematics, there are many abstractions that we deal with. For example, we deal with the notion of a real number with infinitesimal granularity and infinite range, even though we hav…
22: Incomplet (Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid: Chapter IV Discussion)
Gödel, Escher, Bach is a book about everything from formal logic to the intricacies underlying the mechanisms of reasoning. For that reason, we've decided to make a tribute episode; specifically, abo…
21: Einstein's Biggest Idea (General Relativity)
Some see the world of thought divided into two types of ideas: evolutionary and revolutionary ideas. However, the truth can be more nuanced than that; evolutionary ideas can spur revolutions, and rev…
20: Rational (Ratios)
From MC²’s statement of mass energy equivalence and Newton’s theory of gravitation to the sex ratio of bees and the golden ratio, our world is characterized by the ratios which can be found within it…
19: Tune of the Hickory Stick (Beginning to Intermediate Math Education)
The art of mathematics has proven, over the millennia, to be a practical as well as beautiful pursuit. This has required us to use results from math in our daily lives, and there's one thing that has…
18: Frequency (Fourier and Related Analyses)
Duration and proximity are, as demonstrated by Fourier and later Einstein and Heisenberg, very closely related properties. These properties are related by a fundamental concept: frequency. A high fre…
17: Navier Stoked (Vector Calculus and Navier-Stokes Equations)
BFNB2: Thought for Food (Discussion about Learning)
BFNB1: Food for Thought (Discussion about Learning)
Minisode 0.6: Four Problems
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Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brea…
15: Consciousness
What does it mean to be a good person? What does it mean to make a mistake? These are questions which we are not going to attempt to answer, but they are essential to the topic of study of today’s ep…
Minisode 0.5: ___forNon___
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This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The…
14: Artificial Thought (Neural Networks)
Go to www.brilliant.org/breakingmathpodcast to learn neural networks, everyday physics, computer science fundamentals, the joy of problem solving, and many related topics in science, technology, engi…