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
OEIS A000104: Free polyominoes without holes
We explore the counting of free polyominoes without holes—the distinct edge-to-edge shapes formed by n squares, up to symmetry. From the early terms 1, 1, 1, 2, 5, 12, 35 to the rapid combinatorial e…
00:05:59 |
Thu 16 Jan 2025
Coconuts and Calculations: The Monkey, the Sailors, and Number Theory
A brain-teasing deep dive into the classic monkey-and-coconuts puzzle. We compare the original version with Williams’ tougher variant, explore Diophantine analysis, the sieve method, base-5 thinking,…
00:13:17 |
Wed 15 Jan 2025
Chariots Unleashed: Engineering, Rivalries, and Rome's Racing Revolution
Dive into the engineering behind ancient speed machines—from the spoked wheel to targeted reinforcements like the Mercuryago wheel. Explore warfare, chariot racing in the Circus Maximus, and the char…
00:15:39 |
Wed 15 Jan 2025
Hairy Balls and the Shape of Reality
Take a coconut, a vector field, and a big idea: on any sphere you can't comb every hair flat. We’ll unpack the hairy ball theorem with Euler characteristics and index sums, then trace its fingerprint…
00:13:43 |
Wed 15 Jan 2025
OEIS A000103: Sphere Triangulations with Minimum Degree Four
We explore A000103, the count of sphere triangulations where every vertex has degree at least four. We discuss why the initial terms are zero, the topological meaning of the degree constraint, and a …
00:08:28 |
Wed 15 Jan 2025
Euler's Fingerprint: A Deep Dive into the Euler Characteristic
Take a guided tour of the Euler characteristic, the resilient topological invariant that remains the same under bending and stretching. We'll trace its history—from Morolico and Euler to Cauchy—and e…
00:14:12 |
Wed 15 Jan 2025
Igloos Unveiled: The Physics of Snow Domes
Join us as we peel back the layers of the classic Arctic igloo. From wind-blown snow insulation and the dome’s weight-distributing shape to convection, tunnel ventilation, and ice skylights, we revea…
00:11:00 |
Wed 15 Jan 2025
The Physics of Whistles: Monopoles, Dipoles, and Flow Feedback
A deep dive into how everyday whistles work—from teapots and edge tones to pipe organs and human whistling—exploring flow instability, feedback mechanisms, and dimensionless numbers that unify their …
00:11:13 |
Wed 15 Jan 2025
Moas Unboxed: Evolution, Ecology, and the Human Story of New Zealand's Flightless Giants
An educational podcast for evolutionary biology students. We trace the moa's deep-time evolution, ecological role as dominant herbivores, and the surprising shift in their family tree—closest living …
00:18:35 |
Wed 15 Jan 2025
OEIS A000102: Compositions with bounded parts, binary runs, and Lyndon shadows
We explore A000102, the OEIS sequence counting compositions of n with parts at most four. We’ll unpack why the early terms look the way they do, examine the tidy seven-term recurrence and its generat…
00:13:18 |
Tue 14 Jan 2025
Wings Over the Mersey: The Liver Bird and Liverpool's Identity
From King John’s royal seal to Bella and Birdie on the Royal Liver Building, this episode traces how the liver bird evolved into Liverpool’s enduring emblem. We explore its history, legends, public a…
00:13:25 |
Mon 13 Jan 2025
OEIS A000101: Record Prime Gaps
We dive into A000101, the OEIS sequence that marks the endpoints of record-breaking prime gaps. Learn what a prime gap is, how the record gaps line up with A002386 on the lower end, and why Ramanujan…
00:12:28 |
Mon 13 Jan 2025
The Deep Dive: Space Weather — From Sun to Satellites
Join us as we explore space weather, the Sun-driven conditions that can affect GPS, power grids, and flight paths. We trace the story from ancient auroras and compass deflections to today’s ground an…
00:17:20 |
Sun 12 Jan 2025
Fakes, Forgeries & Masterpieces: A History of Art Forgery
Join us as we trace centuries of deception in the art world—from ancient copies to Renaissance scandals to modern scams. We’ll explore why forgers do it, how they fool experts, and how science, prove…
00:20:00 |
Sun 12 Jan 2025
Deep Dive: The Evolution of Operating Systems
From punch cards and blinking lights to Unix, C, and the portable, modular OSes that power today’s machines, this episode traces the arc of operating systems. We’ll explore mainframes (OS/360, MCP, S…
00:17:00 |
Sun 12 Jan 2025
Lush: The Hidden Pioneer Behind Early Deep Learning
We explore Lush, a Lisp-inspired language with strong typing and seamless C interoperability, designed for researchers tackling large-scale numerical and graphics tasks. We'll unpack its hybrid inter…
00:17:00 |
Sun 12 Jan 2025
Floppy Disk Chronicles: The Tiny Tech That Shaped a Computer Century
Join us as we rewind from IBM's eight-inch 'minnow' to Sony's battle-tested 3.5-inch standard. We'll uncover the format wars, clever encoding tricks like GCR, and industry moves that made the 3.5-inc…
00:17:53 |
Sun 12 Jan 2025
OEIS A000099: Gauss Circle Problem
A000099 counts lattice points inside expanding circles and links simple geometry to deep number theory. We explore how nr, the number of lattice points with x^2+y^2 ≤ R^2, relates to the circle’s are…
00:10:44 |
Sun 12 Jan 2025
Planck, Photons, and the Quantum Revolution
A brisk, story-driven look at how Planck’s quantized energy and Einstein’s photons shattered classical physics, gave us Bohr’s atomic model, and paved the way for quantum tech—from lasers and spectro…
00:09:36 |
Sun 12 Jan 2025
OEIS A000100: The simple sequence with a surprisingly rich web of connections
We explore A000100, which counts compositions of n with maximum part 3 and the binary strings of length n−1 whose longest zero run is exactly 2. We uncover links to Fibonacci and Tribonacci numbers, …
00:07:33 |
Sun 12 Jan 2025
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