Intellectually Curious
Intellectually Curious is a podcast by Mike Breault featuring over 1,200 AI-powered explorations across science, mathematics, philosophy, and personal growth. Each short-form episode is generated, refined, and published with the help of large language models—turning curiosity into an ongoing audio encyclopedia. Designed for anyone who loves learning, it offers quick dives into everything from combinatorics and cryptography to systems thinking and psychology.
Inspiration for this podcast:
“Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune
Note: These podcasts were made with NotebookLM. AI can make mistakes. Please double-check any critical information.
- Update frequency
- every day
- Average duration
- 12 minutes
- Episodes
- 1399
- Years Active
- 2024 - 2025
The Morris Worm (1988): The Wake-Up Call That Shaped Cybersecurity
Exploring the 1988 Morris worm—how a self-replicating program exploited Unix vulnerabilities, slowed the early Internet, and sparked the birth of CERT. We unpack the incident, its legal fallout, and …
00:15:01 |
Mon 17 Feb 2025
What Is Mathematics? A Philosophical Dive
A guided tour through the philosophy of mathematics: are mathematical objects real or invented? We unpack realism vs. anti-realism, formalism, intuitionism, logicism, and constructivist views, plus w…
00:13:58 |
Mon 17 Feb 2025
Dispersion Unveiled: The Wave Equation Behind Light, Sound, and Matter
We explore the dispersion relation—the link between a wave's frequency and wavenumber—and how it governs wave speeds across media, from prisms to solids. Along the way we trace history, quantum twist…
00:09:37 |
Mon 17 Feb 2025
NAND Gate: The Universal Building Block of Digital Logic
Dive into the NAND gate, from its simple truth table to its deep connections with De Morgan’s laws and logic symbolism. We’ll explore how this single gate can implement any Boolean function, glimpse …
00:15:32 |
Mon 17 Feb 2025
OEIS A000134: Zeros of the Bessel function J0 rounded to the nearest integer
Today we explore A000134, the sequence formed by rounding the positive zeros of the Bessel function J0 to the nearest integer. The actual zeros are approximately 2.4048, 5.5201, 8.6537, 11.7915, 14.9…
00:08:31 |
Mon 17 Feb 2025
Seven Plus or Minus Two: The Limits and Tricks of Human Information Processing
We revisit George A. Miller's classic claim that absolute judgments cap at about seven categories. Explore the difference between bits and chunks, how chunking and recoding expand memory, and what mu…
00:16:28 |
Sun 16 Feb 2025
Super Cavitation: The Bubble-Borne Math Behind Ultra-Fast Underwater Tech
Join us as we unpack super cavitation—the math- and flow-driven phenomenon that lets objects ride a giant bubble through water. We break down the cavitation number, flow planes, and design challenges…
00:15:10 |
Sun 16 Feb 2025
The Traveling Salesman Problem: From Icosian Games to NP-Hard Routing
Exploring one of math and CS' most enduring puzzles: what the Traveling Salesman Problem is, why it's so hard, and how clever algorithms yield near-optimal routes in the real world. We'll trace its 1…
00:16:01 |
Sun 16 Feb 2025
From Tally Marks to Infinite Symbols: The Evolution of Mathematical Notation
Take a time-traveling tour through how math notation grew from tally marks on clay tablets to the elegant symbols that power calculus, algebra, and modern science. We trace milestones across civiliza…
00:19:44 |
Sun 16 Feb 2025
Draconian but Dependable: NASA's 10 Rules for Safety-Critical Software
In this Deep Dive, we unpack NASA's ten rules for building rock-solid software where lives are on the line. From forbidding goto and recursion to fixed loops, no dynamic memory, one-page functions, a…
00:16:34 |
Sun 16 Feb 2025
Typing the Brain: Hierarchical Language and Predictive Coding
Explore Meta AI’s study showing that language in the brain is formed in a top-down, predictive cascade as we type. From syllables to phrases, FastText and GPT-2 reveal how context shapes neural repre…
00:08:57 |
Sun 16 Feb 2025
Below the Surface: USOs — History, Theories, and Investigations
A deep dive into Unidentified Submerged Objects (USOs): their long history, competing scientific theories, and official investigations. From Columbus’s legends to recent AARO analyses, we explore wha…
00:13:35 |
Sun 16 Feb 2025
OEIS A000133: Boolean Functions, Burnside, and the Geometry of Symmetry
A deep dive into A000133, the OEIS entry counting Boolean functions of n variables up to natural symmetries. We start from truth tables and show how Burnside's lemma trims the combinatorial explosion…
00:11:23 |
Sun 16 Feb 2025
Archimedes Unleashed: Eureka Moments, Ingenious Inventions, and Hidden Texts
Join us as we explore Archimedes of Syracuse—his life, legendary Eureka moment, and astonishing inventions like the Archimedes screw and the claw. We’ll see how his buoyancy principle and early work …
00:10:26 |
Sun 16 Feb 2025
Bayesian Programming: Updating Beliefs in Software and Data
Explore how Bayesian methods turn uncertainty into actionable insight for software engineering. From updating spam filters and A/B tests to ranking content and evaluating risk, we show practical ways…
00:21:01 |
Sun 16 Feb 2025
Rhombicosidodecahedron Unpacked: A Deep Dive into Archimedean Geometry
In this episode we unpack the rhombicosidodecahedron, an Archimedean solid with 62 faces (20 triangles, 30 squares, 12 pentagons), 120 edges, and 60 vertices. We'll trace its kinship to the icosahedr…
00:16:19 |
Sun 16 Feb 2025
FFT Unpacked: Demystifying the Fast Fourier Transform
A deep dive into the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT): from the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) to real‑world signals. We'll explore how the divide‑and‑conquer Cooley–Tukey algorithm speeds up Fourier a…
00:12:22 |
Sun 16 Feb 2025
Robust Geometry: Algorithms That See in a Floating-Point World
In this episode we dive into computational geometry, exploring how real-world number representations affect shape problems—from left-of-line tests to convex hulls. Learn how robustness helps algorith…
00:15:28 |
Sun 16 Feb 2025
OEIS A000132: Five-square representations and theta series
In this Deep Dive, we explore A000132, the number of ways to write an integer as the sum of five squares. We’ll unpack the distinctive unit‑digit pattern modulo 5, explain why certain residues occur …
00:15:32 |
Sat 15 Feb 2025
The Deep Dive: AI Meets Elite Chess — How Machines Shape Human Thought
A data-driven exploration of how artificial intelligence has changed the minds of the world’s top chess players. We trace two AI revolutions, analyze millions of moves against Stockfish, and examine …
00:12:30 |
Sat 15 Feb 2025
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are the property of Mike Breault. This content is not affiliated with or endorsed by eachpod.com.