Breaking Math Podcast

Breaking Math Podcast

by Autumn Phaneuf & Noah Giansiracusa
MathematicsNatural Sciences
Season 5
76: Joule Pay for This! (Energy)
Join Sofia Baca and her guests Millicent Oriana from Nerd Forensics and Arianna Lunarosa as they discuss energy. The sound that you're listening to, the device that you're listening on, and the cells in both the ear you're using to listen and the brain that understands these words have at least one thing in common: they represent the consumption or transference of energy. The same goes for your eyes if you're reading a transcript of this. The waves in the ears are pressure waves, while eyes receive information in the form of radiant energy, but they both are still called "energy". But what is energy? Energy is a scalar quantity measured in dimensions of force times distance, and the role that energy plays depends on the dynamics of the system. So what is the difference between potential and kinetic energy? How can understanding energy simplify problems? And how do we design a roller coaster in frictionless physics land?[Featuring: Sofia Baca; Millicent Oriana, Arianna Lunarosa] This episode is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Full text here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
S5 · E1
Jan 15, 2023
1:06:30
Season 4
75: Existential Physics with Sabine Hossenfelder (Author Interview)
An interview with Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder about her second book Existential Physics. Sabine is host of the famous youtube show Science with Sabine. 
S4
Oct 13, 2022
41:31
74: Lights, Camera, Action! (3D Computer Graphics: Part I)
The world around us is a four-dimensional world; there are three spatial dimensions, and one temporal dimension. Many of these objects emit an almost unfathomable number of photons. As we developed as creatures on this planet, we gathered the ability to sense the world around us; and given the amount of information represented as photons, it is no surprise that we developed an organ for sensing photons. But because of the amount of photons that are involved, and our relatively limited computational resources, it is necessary to develop shortcuts if we want to simulate an environment in silico. So what is raytracing? How is that different from what happens in games? And what does Ptolemy have to do with 3D graphics? All of this and more on this episode of Breaking Math.
S4
Jun 19, 2022
42:59
73: Materialism: a Material Science Podcast Podcast Episode (Interview with Taylor Sparks)
Physical objects are everywhere, and they're all made out of molecules, and atoms. However, the arrangement and refinement of these atoms can be the difference between a computer and sand, or between a tree and paper. For a species as reliant on tool use, the ability to conceieve of, design, create, and produce these materials is an ongoing concern. Since we've been around as humans, and even before, we have been material scientists in some regard, searching for new materials to make things out of, including the tools we use to make things. So what is the difference between iron and steel? How do we think up new things to make things out of? And what are time crystals? All of this and more on this episode of Breaking Math. This episode is released under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. More information here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ [Featuring: Sofía Baca, Gabriel Hesch; Taylor Sparks]
S4
May 28, 2022
55:45
Season 3
31: Into the Abyss (Part Two; Black Holes)
Black holes are objects that seem exotic to us because they have properties that boggle our comparatively mild-mannered minds. These are objects that light cannot escape from, yet glow with the energy they have captured until they evaporate out all of their mass. They thus have temperature, but Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts a paradoxically smooth form. And perhaps most mind-boggling of all, it seems at first glance that they have the ability to erase information. So what is black hole thermodynamics? How does it interact with the fabric of space? And what are virtual particles?
S3 · E31
Aug 23, 2018
56:49
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 as though such an idea would only beget horror in the human mind. And black holes, being objects from which not even light can escape, for many do beget that same existential horror. But these objects are not exotic: they form regularly in our universe, and their role in the intricate web of existence that is our universe is as valid as the laws that result in our own humanity. So what are black holes? How can they have information? And how does this relate to the edge of the universe?
S3 · E30
Aug 2, 2018
51:09
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 American colonies. To that end, we are here to talk about war, and how it has been influenced by mathematics and mathematicians. The brutality of war and the ingenuity of war seem to stand at stark odds to one another, as one begets temporary chaos and the other represents lasting accomplishment in the sciences. Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest western minds, thought war was an illness, but worked on war machines. Feynman and Von Neumann held similar views, as have many over time; part of being human is being intrigued and disgusted by war, which is something we have to be aware of as a species. So what is warfare? What have we learned from refining its practice? And why do we find it necessary?
S3 · E29
Jul 14, 2018
34:09
Season 2
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 in that reality. One topic that has grown from a curiosity to a branch of mathematics within the last century is the topic of cellular automata. Cellular automata are named as such for the simple reason that they involve discrete cells (which hold a (usually finite and countable) range of values) and the cells, over some field we designate as "time", propagate to simple automatic rules. So what can cellular automata do? What have we learned from them? And how could they be involved in the future of the way we view the world?
S2 · E27
May 14, 2018
51:48
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 how this has been accomplished, we must understand the science and mathematics of epidemiology. Epidemiology is the field of study related to how disease unfolds in a population. So how has epidemiology improved our lives? What have we learned from it? And what can we do to learn more from it?
S2 · E25
Apr 13, 2018
44:34
How Data Science Exposes Injustice: Chad Topaz on Unlocking Justice
What happens when the evidence of injustice is buried in messy, redacted, or inaccessible data? Mathematician and data scientist Chad Topaz joins Breaking Math to discuss his book Unlocking Justice. Together, we explore policing, sentencing, public records, Rikers Island, algorithmic risk, and the limits of quantifying human lives. This is a conversation about math, power, transparency, and the small acts of hope that can change systems. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Context of the Conversation 01:11 Chad's Journey from Mathematics to Social Justice 03:50 The Personal Nature of Chad's Book 04:40 Challenges in Data Collection and Access 08:03 The Impact of Data on Policing and Surveillance 09:51 Humorous Yet Tragic Data Collection Experiences 12:55 The Importance of Data Preparation and Cleaning 14:40 Navigating Imperfect Data and Its Consequences 17:48 The Balance Between Quantification and Human Stories 22:25 Incarceration and Public Health: The Rikers Island Case Study 31:36 Mathematics and Social Justice: Secrets of the Elite 39:03 Hope and Action: A Personal Journey in Data for Justice Follow Chad Topaz on Bluesky(https://bsky.app/profile/chadtopaz.bsky.social) Book (https://amzn.to/3S21pKb) Follow Breaking Math on Substack (https://breakingmath.substack.com/) X (https://x.com/breakingmathpod) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/breakingmathmedia/) Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/breakingmath.bsky.social) Website (https://www.breakingmath.io/) YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@BreakingMathPod) Follow Noah on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/profnoahgian/) X (https://x.com/ProfNoahGian) Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/profnoahgian.bsky.social) Follow Autumn on X (https://x.com/1autumn_leaf) Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/1autumnleaf.bsky.social) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/1autumnleaf/) Substack (https://substack.com/@1autumnleaf) email: breakingmathpodcast@gmail.com
Jun 10, 2026
40:06
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