Degrees of Freedom

S4E01 - Curiosity and wonder

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For the first episode of Season 4, Philip Ball and Brian Ostafin join us to talk about curiosity and wonder.

Tracing the historical evolution of these emotions and exploring their psychological underpinnings, we look into the challenges of harnessing them productively and constructively in education and scientific research. Along the way we touch upon many themes, and revisit our thoughts in light of internet searches and AI.


Links of the episode:

  • Philip Ball's website
  • Curiosity: how science became interested in everything (2013)
  • Brian Ostafin
  • Robert White, Motivation reconsidered: the concept of competence (1959)
  • G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology (1940)
  • Degrees of Freedom S1E7 - Failing Forward
  • Marret Noordewier and Małgorzata Gocłowska, Shared and unique features of epistemic emotions: Awe, surprise, curiosity, interest, confusion, and boredom (2024)
  • Jonathon Macphetres, Oh, the things you don’t know: awe promotes awareness of knowledge gaps and science interest (2019)
  • Professor Tailoerd AI tutor – engagement doubled (Harvard Gazett, 2024) and the draft of the related paper


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    Produced by Tassos Sarampalis and Marcello Seri, at the University of Groningen
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    Illustrations by Anne Caesar van Wieren www.annecaesar.nl
    What's the Angle and Zen Garden are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com.

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