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
- 1391
- Years Active
- 2024 - 2025
OEIS A000009: Partitions into distinct parts
Join us for a friendly tour of OEIS A000009, the sequence counting partitions of n into distinct parts. We’ll uncover the surprising bijection that makes partitions into distinct parts and partitions…
00:09:53 |
Fri 18 Oct 2024
Intuition Over Brute Force: The AI Chess Revolution
A deep dive into Google's DeepMind chess model that reaches grandmaster level without heavy search. We'll unpack how it learns from millions of games to develop an intuition-like value function, why …
00:09:51 |
Fri 18 Oct 2024
OEIS A00008: Number of ways to make change and Pick's Theorem
Explore how a simple daily task—making change—unfolds into rich math. OEIS A00008 counts the ways to make change with US coins, and plotting the nickels-and-dimes solutions yields a triangular lattic…
00:10:26 |
Thu 17 Oct 2024
Germanium: The Hidden Hero Behind Modern Tech
From Mendeleev’s ekasilicon prediction to WWII radar diodes, the transistor era, and silicon’s rise, this deep dive reveals how germanium quietly powers today’s fiber optics and infrared tech—and why…
00:09:02 |
Thu 17 Oct 2024
OEIS A00007: Characteristic function of the set {0}
A deceptively simple sequence—1, 0, 0, 0...—serves as the indicator for the singleton set {0}. We explore why this tiny sequence pops up in unexpected corners of mathematics: the alternating sums of …
00:08:21 |
Wed 16 Oct 2024
Gallium Unveiled: The Metal That Melts in Your Hand and Powers the Future
From Mendeleev’s eka-aluminum prediction to today’s high-tech uses, this episode dives into gallium’s quirky physics—melting near room temperature, contracting when it solidifies, and a huge liquid r…
00:14:00 |
Wed 16 Oct 2024
From Kolent to Crock Pot: A Slow-Cooked History
Explore how a 19th-century Vilna dish called kolent sparked a modern kitchen icon. From slow-cooking in bakery ovens to Irving Netchimson's Beanery and a rival company's makeover, learn how the Crock…
00:08:15 |
Wed 16 Oct 2024
Beneath Our Boats: The Seabed Uncovered
Join us for a deep dive beneath the waves into the seabed—the ocean floor from shelf to trench. We’ll map its dramatic geography (mid‑ocean ridges, abyssal plains, continental shelves and slopes, tre…
00:16:43 |
Wed 16 Oct 2024
Predicting the Unpredictable: The Scene Transformer and the Future of Safe Autonomy
We break down Scene Transformer, a scene-centric, attention-driven model that jointly predicts trajectories for cars, pedestrians, and cyclists. Learn why moving from marginal to joint prediction mat…
00:07:58 |
Wed 16 Oct 2024
Zinc Unveiled: From Ancient Alloys to Modern Marvels
Dive into the unexpectedly epic history and science of zinc. From brass and bronze to galvanization and sunscreen, this episode traces how a once-hidden element shaped civilizations, architecture, an…
00:12:23 |
Tue 15 Oct 2024
Between the Squares: Primes, Floor Roots, and Legendre's Conjecture
We dive into an OEIS sequence built from primes by taking the integer part of their square roots and interpret it as a guide to how many perfect squares lie beneath each prime. Along the way we’ll se…
00:08:40 |
Tue 15 Oct 2024
Remainders, Primes, and RSA: The Chinese Remainder Theorem
From ancient China’s Sun Tzu Suan Jing to modern cryptography, this episode reveals how the Chinese Remainder Theorem turns simple remainders into a unique solution. We’ll explore a classic puzzle wi…
00:15:19 |
Tue 15 Oct 2024
Nord Voices: The Real Heart of Skyrim
A thoughtful, story-driven exploration of Nord history in Tamriel—from Atmora’s exodus and the Night of Tears to the moot, empire-building, and the Dragonborn’s Thu'um. We separate myth from memory t…
00:13:11 |
Tue 15 Oct 2024
Urdu: From Army Camps to Poetry and Script
A sweeping tour of Urdu’s history—from 12th‑century Delhi’s military camps where Turkish, Arabic, and Persian mingled with local speech, to the Hindavi–Hindi continuum and the decisive script split i…
00:13:23 |
Tue 15 Oct 2024
Blackreach Unveiled: Secrets Beneath Skyrim
We descend into Blackreach—the vast, hidden world beneath Skyrim—to trace its Dwemer engineers, the fate of the Snow Elves who became the Falmer, and the perilous lure of the Dark Heart. From colossa…
00:08:56 |
Tue 15 Oct 2024
The Real Holmes: Clues, Context, and the Sherlockian Game
A deep dive into how Conan Doyle built Sherlock Holmes, from Dr. Joseph Bell’s observed science to Poe and Gaboriau’s influences. We explore the Sherlockian game—reconciling timeline inconsistencies,…
00:11:52 |
Mon 14 Oct 2024
The 27-Dimensional Secret: Albert Algebras and the Geometry of Symmetry
Join us as we explore Albert algebras—the 27-dimensional Jordan algebras that bridge geometry, symmetry, and number theory. We'll see how their multiplication mirrors the 27 lines on a cubic surface,…
00:10:29 |
Mon 14 Oct 2024
Stradivari Unveiled: Craft, Myth, and the Quest for the Perfect Violin
Take a deeper look at Stradivari—the man, the craft, and the legend surrounding his instruments. We untangle the life gaps, the training debates (Amati vs Ruggeri), and a craftsman’s 75-year quest th…
00:15:19 |
Mon 14 Oct 2024
OEIS A000005: The Divisor Function
Dive into d(n), the divisor function that counts how many positive divisors a number has. Learn how, if n = ∏ p_i^{a_i}, then d(n) = ∏ (a_i + 1), making it a multiplicative friend of prime factorizat…
00:07:41 |
Mon 14 Oct 2024
Copper: From Ancient Spark to Renewable Power
Trace copper’s epic journey—from native copper and the Copper Age to today’s wind turbines and solar panels. Learn what gives copper its iconic color and world‑class conductivity, why its recycling i…
00:06:37 |
Mon 14 Oct 2024
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