Breaking Math Podcast

By Autumn Phaneuf & Noah GiansiracusaScience Natural Sciences Mathematics

Breaking Math Podcast episodes

August 15, 2019 42: Maybe? (Probability and Statistics)
Statistics is a field that is considered boring by a lot of people, including a huge amount of mathematicians. This may be because the history of statistics starts in a sort of humdrum way: collecting information on the population for use by the state. However, it has blossomed into a beautiful field with its fundamental roots in measure theory, and with some very interesting properties. So what is statistics? What is Bayes' theorem? And what are the differences between the frequentist and Bayesian approaches to a problem?

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (creativecommons.org)

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Patreon Become a monthly supporter at patreon.com/breakingmath
33 min
August 04, 2019 SR1: Forty Intros (Catalogue)
We've been doing this show for a while, and we thought it'd be fun to put out our first forty intros, especially since we passed 500,000 listens very recently.
License: CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org for more info)
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Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/breakingmathpodcast/support
34 min
July 29, 2019 41: Reality Is More Than Complex (Group Theory and Physics)
Children who are being taught mathematics often balk at the idea of negative numbers, thinking them to be fictional entities, and often only learn later that they are useful for expressing opposite extremes of things, such as considering a debt an amount of money with a negative sum. Similarly, students of mathematics often are puzzled by the idea of complex numbers, saying that it makes no sense to be able to take the square root of something negative, and only realizing later that these can have the meaning of two-dimensional direction and magnitude, or that they are essential to our modern understanding of electrical engineering. Our discussion today will be much more abstract than that. Much like in our discussion in episode five, "Language of the Universe", we will be discussing how math and physics draw inspiration from one another; we're going to talk about what different fields (such as the real, complex, and quaternion fields) seem to predict about our universe. So how are real numbers related to classical mechanics? What does this mean complex numbers and quaternions are related to? And what possible physicses exist?

Update: Dr. Alex Alaniz and the Breaking Math Podcast have teamed up to create a new youtube show called the "Turing Rabbit Holes Podcast." We discuss science, math, and society with spectacular visuals. Available at youtube.com/TuringRabbitHolesPodcast and on all other podcast platforms.

Ways to support the show:
Patreon Become a monthly supporter at patreon.com/breakingmath

License is Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

55 min
July 07, 2019 40: Save the Date (Calendrical Math)
A calendar is a system of dividing up time into manageable chunks so that we can reference how long ago something happened, agree on times to do things in the future, and generally just have a sense of reckoning time. This can be as simple as recognizing the seasons of the year, as arcane as the Roman Republican calendar, or as accurate as atomic clocks. So what are the origins of calendars? What is intercalation? And when is Easter?
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Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/breakingmathpodcast/support
32 min
May 29, 2019 39: Syntax Matters: Syntax... Matters? (Formal Grammar)
We communicate every day through languages; not only human languages, but other things that could be classified as languages such as internet protocols, or even the structure of business transactions. The structure of words or sentences, or their metaphorical equivalents, in that language is known as their syntax. There is a way to describe certain syntaxes mathematically through what are known as formal grammars. So how is a grammar defined mathematically? What model of language is often used in math? And what are the fundamental limits of grammar?
34 min
April 23, 2019 38: The Great Stratagem Heist (Game Theory: Iterated Elimination of Dominated Strategies)
Game theory is all about decision-making and how it is impacted by choice of strategy, and a strategy is a decision that is influenced not only by the choice of the decision-maker, but one or more similar decision makers. This episode will give an idea of the type of problem-solving that is used in game theory. So what is strict dominance? How can it help us solve some games? And why are The Obnoxious Seven wanted by the police?
Patreon Become a monthly supporter at patreon.com/breakingmath

33 min
February 25, 2019 37: The One Where They Parody Saw [audio fixed again] (Game Theory)
Hello listeners. You don't know me, but I know you. I want to play a game. In your ears are two earbuds. Connected to the earbuds are a podcast playing an episode about game theory. Hosting that podcast are two knuckleheads. And you're locked into this episode. The key is at the end of the episode. What is game theory? Why did we parody the Saw franchise? And what twisted lessons will you learn?

-See our New Youtube Show "Turing Rabbit Holes Podcast" at youtube.com/TuringRabbitHolesPodcast. Also available on all podcast players.

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This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/breakingmathpodcast/support
40 min
February 25, 2019 37: The One Where They Parody Saw (audio fixed)
Hello listeners. You don't know me, but I know you. I want to play a game. In your ears are two earbuds. Connected to the earbuds are a podcast playing an episode about game theory. Hosting that podcast are two knuckleheads. And you're locked into this episode. The key is at the end of the episode. What is game theory? Why did we parody the Saw franchise? And what twisted lessons will you learn?

Become a supporter of this podcast:
https://anchor.fm/breakingmathpodcast/support
40 min
February 24, 2019 37: The One Where They Parody Saw
Hello listeners. You don't know me, but I know you. I want to play a game. In your ears are two earbuds. Connected to the earbuds are a podcast playing an episode about game theory. Hosting that podcast are two knuckleheads. And you're locked into this episode. The key is at the end of the episode. What is game theory? Why did we parody the Saw franchise? And what twisted lessons will you learn?

Become a supporter of this podcast:
https://anchor.fm/breakingmathpodcast/support
41 min
January 26, 2019 Stay Tuned for Season 3
Breaking Math will return with a third season in early February with an episode series about game theory starting with "The One where they Parody 'Saw'". We also talk about some upcoming news and such. Until then, enjoy in-the-works podcast "The Soapbox: a Podcast about Speech and Debate" by Santa Fe Trail Media (our parent organization), which is featured here on Breaking Math.
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This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/breakingmathpodcast/support
19 min

About Breaking Math Podcast

From the publisher's feed

Breaking Math is a deep-dive science, technology, engineering, AI, and mathematics podcast that explores the world through the lens of logic, patterns, and critical thinking.…

Hosted by Autumn Phaneuf, an expert in industrial engineering, operations research, and applied mathematics, and Noah Giansiracusa, a mathematician and leading voice in algorithmic literacy and technology ethics, the show is dedicated to uncovering the mathematical structures behind science, technology, and the systems shaping our future.

What began as a conversation about math as a pure and elegant discipline has evolved into a platform for bold, interdisciplinary dialogue. Each episode of Breaking Math takes listeners on an intellectual journey—into the strange beauty of chaos theory, the ethical dilemmas of AI and algorithms, the hidden math of biology and evolution, or the physics governing black holes and the cosmos. Along the way, Autumn and Noah speak with working scientists, researchers, and thinkers across fields: computer scientists, physicists, chemists, engineers, economists, philosophers, and more.

But this isn’t just a podcast about equations. It’s a show about how mathematics shapes the way we think, decide, build, and understand the world. Breaking Math pushes back against the idea that STEM belongs behind a paywall or an academic podium. It’s for the curious, the critical, and the creative—for anyone who believes that ideas should be rigorous, accessible, and infused with wonder.

If you’ve ever wondered:

What’s the math behind machine learning and modern algorithms?
How do we quantify uncertainty in climate and economic models?
Can intelligence or consciousness be meaningfully described in AI?
Why does beauty matter in an equation?

You’re in the right place.

At its heart, Breaking Math is about building bridges—between disciplines, between experts and the public, and between abstract mathematics and the messy, magnificent reality we live in. With humor, clarity, and deep respect for complexity, Autumn and Noah invite you to rethink what math can be—and how it can help us shape a better future.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Website: https://breakingmath.io

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/breakingmathmedia

Email: [email protected]