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
- 1388
- Years Active
- 2024 - 2025
Paraguay's Gambit: The War of the Triple Alliance
A deep dive into the 1860s conflict that pitted landlocked Paraguay against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. From the long shadow of colonial borders and old treaties to Solano López’s risks, the Urug…
00:11:41 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
OEIS A000003: Binary Quadratic Forms, Elliptic Integrals, and Klein's J-Invariant
We explore A000003, a famously stubborn OEIS entry that starts with mostly 1s and 2s and still has no known closed form. We trace its surprising appearances in the theory of binary quadratic forms, t…
00:07:10 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
OEIS A00001: Number of Groups
A friendly, layperson-friendly tour of what a 'group' is and what A00001 counts—the number of distinct groups of order n up to isomorphism. We’ll explain why prime orders are simple while composite o…
00:10:31 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
The Jevons Paradox in the AI Era: When Efficiency Fuels Demand
In this deep dive, we unpack the Jevons Paradox—how making systems more efficient can boost overall resource use. We trace its roots in 18th-century coal, connect it to modern AI and computational po…
00:08:47 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
Swarm: Orchestrating AI Teams for Complex Problems
A deep dive into OpenAI's experimental Swarm framework, where multiple AI agents collaborate as a lightweight, testable team. We explore how routines and context variables enable soft adherence and s…
00:13:20 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
The Golden Owl: A 31-Year Armchair Treasure Hunt
A hand-crafted prize, 11 intricate riddles, and a community that endured for three decades. From Max Valentin’s maps, megatrick, and final hidden riddle to the Minitel-era interactions that kept the …
00:12:29 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
Oscar and Gabby: AI Helpers for Open Source Maintainers
A deep dive into Google's Oscar project—an Open Source Contributor Agent Architecture—and its live prototype Gabby, which tackles maintenance toil like duplicate discovery and issue triage. We discus…
00:08:56 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
OEIS A000002: Kolakowski sequence
Join us for a deep dive into the Kolakowski sequence, a deceptively simple run-length sequence of 1s and 2s that generates itself. We explore how each block’s length determines the next, the self-ref…
00:10:05 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
Nazeem and the Cloud District: A Skyrim Deep Dive
Join us for a deep dive into Skyrim’s most quotable resident. We unpack the infamous line about the Cloud District, tease out the clues like the two keys to Chillfurrow Farm and the mysterious Winter…
00:07:12 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
Aha Moments and Teamwork: Real Stories Behind Everyday Inventions
Join us as we pull back the curtain on the National Inventors Hall of Fame and explore how everyday breakthroughs—often born from accidents, persistence, and collaboration—changed the world. From the…
00:08:09 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
Inside the AI Mind: Patch Scopes, Reverse Reasoning, and the New Transparency
We unpack patch scopes—the groundbreaking technique from a July 2024 Google AI paper—showing how researchers peek into LLMs' hidden layers, observe their step-by-step processing, and even nudge their…
00:09:41 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
Oxygen: From Fire to Life
A breezy deep dive into the gas that makes life possible — tracing its history from ancient ideas and the phlogiston era to Scheele, Priestley, and Lavoisier. We’ll explore the oxygen cycle, its big …
00:07:18 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
The Optimism Principle: Turning Belief into Action
A deep dive into the optimism principle—how believing in a better future, paired with deliberate action, can drive leadership, innovation, and social change. We examine evidence, real-world cases (li…
00:07:44 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
Nitrogen Fixation: From Lightning to Legumes and Beyond
A deep dive into how nitrogen becomes usable for life: the rhizobia in plant roots, legumes and other partnerships, and the surprising role of lightning. We explore the Haber–Bosch fertilizer, its en…
00:06:34 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
Nitrogen: The Silent Force — Life's Building Block and Industrial Dynamo
A deep dive into the surprising chemistry and wide reach of nitrogen. We explore its discovery, the iconic N≡N triple bond, and how this humble gas powers life while driving innovations—from food pac…
00:10:20 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
Nickel: The Quiet Driver of the Modern World
A Deep Dive into nickel's unlikely journey—from ancient bronzes to today's smartphones and electric vehicles. We'll uncover its unique properties, the coinage era, how most of the element hides in Ea…
00:16:02 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
Neon: The Cosmic Glow Behind City Lights
A deep dive into neon—from its serendipitous discovery in 1898 to its role in stars and its rare presence on Earth. We explore how neon glows, why most colorful signs use other gases, and how this hu…
00:11:59 |
Sun 13 Oct 2024
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