Breaking Math Podcast

Forecasting Explained: How Prediction Markets Beat Experts

Professional forecaster Molly Hickman breaks down what it really means to assign a probability to the future — and why she believes generalists often out-forecast subject

What Actually Makes Something Alive? with Melanie Challenger

What does it mean to be alive? In this episode of Breaking Math, Autumn and Noah speak with Melanie Challenger, author of Alive, about one of the most profound questions

Why Uncertainty Is Science's Greatest Strength with Stuart Firestein

Neuroscientist Stuart Firestein (Columbia University) joins Breaking Math to make an extravagant claim: uncertainty isn't a weakness in science — it's the defining featur

Robot Proof: Why Better AI Starts With Better People with Vivienne Ming

Neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and author Dr. Vivienne Ming joins Autumn and Noah to make the case that if we want better AI, we need to build better people first. We get

Why Nothing Works: Robber Barons, Algorithms & Governing AI

In this episode, Historian and author Marc Dunkelman to explain why the 19th-century fight over railroad power is the exact fight we're about to have over algorithms and

Can Math Save Journalism?: Julia Angwin on Proof, Power, and Amazon's Algorithm

In this conversation we chat with Julia Angwin — Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, founder of Proof News, and former Wall Street Journal and ProPublica reporter — to mak

The Proof in the Code: How Lean Is Quietly Rewriting Trust in Math (w/ Kevin Hartnett)

In this episode, Autumn and Noah talk with Kevin Hartnett about why mathematicians are willing to spend years reducing an idea to a level of detail a machine can check, w

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

Rise of the Robots: Is AI Coming for Your Job?

This conversation explores the profound impact of AI and automation on the future of work, economy, and society. Featuring Martin Ford, author of 'Rise of the Robots,' th

The Echoing Universe: How Radio Waves, AI, and Math Could Help Us Find Aliens with Emma Chapman

Dr. Emma Chapman explains radio astronomy using the fruit bowl metaphor, explores the emotional and scientific aspects of space exploration, and discusses future technolo

AI Solves 80-Year-Old Math Conjecture: What It Means for the Future of Mathematics

This episode explores how AI, specifically OpenAI's recent breakthrough in solving an 80-year-old math conjecture, is transforming the field of mathematics. Featuring ins

The Science of Addiction: Dopamine, Social Media, and the Myth of Willpower with Maia Szalavitz

In this episode with award-winning journalist and author Maia Szalavitz challenges the idea that addiction is simply about pleasure or willpower. Instead, she explains ad

Are We Being Misled by Data? Ron Wasserstein on AI, Bias, and Statistical Truth

In this episode of Breaking Math, Autumn and Noah speak with Ron Wasserstein, Executive Director of the American Statistical Association, about what statistics means in a

How Ransomware Became a Global Industry with Anja Shortland on Dark Screens

What if ransomware did not begin with criminals, but with curiosity? In this episode of Breaking Math, Autumn and Noah talk with Anja Shortland, professor of political ec

Explaining Huge Numbers with Richard Elwes

What does it actually mean for a number to be “big”? In this episode of Breaking Math, Autumn chats with mathematician Richard Elwes to explore how huge numbers reveal th

AI Isn’t Replacing You—It’s Changing the Rules with Sheamus McGovern

In this episode we sit down with Sheamus McGovern, founder of the Open Data Science Conference (ODSC AI), to unpack what AI actually looks like. Sheamus shares what’s rea

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

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 seein

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 colon

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