I've seen this recommended a few times here, and I've listened since the beginning. I'd recommend it. But it would be hard to catch up after nearly 14 years and 187 episodes (probably averaging an hour?) - I wonder if there's a shorter history of English somewhere.

Is it still in production? I mean are new episodes still being released? Because I haven't finished the first episode yet, but if all episodes are as interesting as the first, I'll finish all those 187 episodes in no time. Hahaha.

Still in production. The most recent episode was released 2025-12-31, and it looks like he's lately been putting them out every two months. (I subscribe to the Patreon; there are bonus episodes interspersed between the regular episodes.)

Update: episode 188 just dropped.

>I wonder if there's a shorter history of English somewhere.

I don't know what's a good podcast for it, but learning "linguistics/linguistic theory" I think is a more rewarding experience. Then when you listen to the history of english you'll have more insights.

> I've seen this recommended a few times here, and I've listened since the beginning.

That, uh, might be my fault. I’m the one who recommended it earlier this week. And I tend to recommend it any time anything related to English pops up.

Frankly I'm surprised Randall Munroe hasn't done this. (I assume he hasn't because nobody has linked to it.)

Would be nice to have a link to the music itself, both recording and sheet music.

This is the E minor prelude - I happened to recognize it by key but not by number.

See e.g. the Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude,_Op._28,_No._4_(Chopin...) which has a recording embedded, although there are surely better ones.

Sheet music from IMSLP: https://s9.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/3/3c/IMSLP319636-PM...

Thank you! That is a crucial omission.

I avoided including the MIDI/Score files in the repo to avoid licensing issues, but I have updated the analysis document immediately with the Wikipedia and IMSLP links.

The ideal experience (as shown in the README gif) is actually running the visualizer alongside a score editor like MuseScore via MIDI port sniffing, so you can see the geometric cursor sync with the sheet music cursor. But for reading the text, the recording is essential context. Thanks for the links.

Chopin's music is in the public domain and can be shared without licensing. Only particular recordings of the music are copyrighted/licensed by artists/labels.

There's two issues with that. Sometimes people publishing sheet music alter it and then they can claim copyright. Second is that that old original sheet music can be illegible to modern musicians – it has evolved over time.

The short version of "I am not interested in reading something that you could not be bothered to actually write" is "ai;dr"

I remember coming across this when I was studying for similar exams in a math PhD program at another university. It helped me realize that I didn't have to know everything in order to pass. (And I didn't! And I passed.)

We also tried to have a web page like this but I didn't bother writing up my exam - after it was over I just didn't want to think about it.

From Leningradsky station you can go to St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad); unsurprisingly, that train arrives at Moskovsky station.

Exactly.

Wiggling feels more like a second-derivative thing to me but that's discussed too - Chebyshev polynomials max out the second derivative as well as the first.

There is a book of exercises, which I've heard of but not looked at myself, titled "Exercises for the Feynman Lectures on Physics". I don't know if that will help you but it might be worth a look.

I'll try to find it; thanks!

This is Terry Tao's first book for a popular audience, due out in October 2026.

I think what likely happens here is that everyone just starts calling 10^(-5) days (= 0.864 current seconds) a "second". (And then there's confusion over which second people mean, analogous to what happens now with tons.)