Explainercast

Shane Swenson and Dave Smith

A podcast of deep, thorough explanations about physics, engineering, and technology

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20 episodes
Avg 47 min
English

Episodes 20

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August 17 · 39 min
Episode 30: How the FBI Can Read Your Signal Messages
In episode 30, Shane and Dave explain how Apple secures push notifications, and how the FBI took advantage of this architectuure to read supposedly encrypted Signal messages.
January 25 · 25 min
Episode 29: Quicksand and Non-Newtonian Fluids
In episode 29, Shane and Dave explain quicksand and non-Newtonian fluids, including the longest-running laboratory experiment.
Nov 29, 2025 · 41 min
Episode 28: Weather Part 3: What goes up must come down
In episode 28, Shane and Dave explain common powerful movements of air that you didn’t know existed: downbursts, microbursts, gust fronts, haboobs, and derechos.
Oct 26, 2025 · 52 min
Episode 27: Weather Part 2: Hurricanes
In episode 27, Shane and Dave explain hurricanes! Why do they form? Where do they go? Why are they ONLY ever hitting North America? Find out in this episode!
Sep 29, 2025 · 40 min
Episode 26: Weather Part 1, Lightning
In episode 26, Shane and Dave kick off a saga about the weather, starting with lightning! How does lightning work? What are the mechanisms that cause it?
Aug 21, 2025 · 1 hr 10 min
Episode 25: Human Visual Perception
In episode 25, Shane and Dave explain how humans perceive things visually: shapes, focus, spatial density, and much more.
May 28, 2025 · 37 min
Episode 24: Color Perception Part 2 of 2
In episode 24, Shane and Dave explain how researchers at UC Berkeley created a color that no human has ever experienced, until now. How did they do this? Is this even possible?
May 27, 2025 · 43 min
Episode 23: Color Perception Part 1 of 2
In episode 23, Shane and Dave explain how the human eye and brain perceive color. Fun fact: there is no yellow on your phone screen (or purple or brown or white or gray), and there might not be any yellow in your yellow shirt either!
Feb 6, 2025 · 37 min
Episode 22: The Signal CloudFlare Hack
In episode 22, Shane and Dave explain how a clever 15-year-old discovered a way to geolocate Signal users, despite Signal’s reputation for strong security. We’ll explain how he did it, and you’ll learn about content distribution networks on the internet.
Jan 14, 2025 · 58 min
Episode 21: Scaling Laws
In episode 21, Shane and Dave explain how things lose features when they get bigger and why. Why can full-sized helipcopters not fly upside down, but small RC helipcopters can?? And so much more!
Dec 20, 2024 · 52 min
Episode 20: Skiing
In episode 20, Shane and Dave explain skiing! First principles: Types, materials, physics, techniques.
Jul 23, 2024 · 56 min
Episode 19: High Performance Driving
In episode 19, Shane and Dave explain high performance driving: How to drive at the performance limit The physics of racing Racing strategy
Jun 28, 2024 · 45 min
Episode 18: How NAT works on the internet
In episode 18, Shane and Dave explain how the internet inventors were able to cram billions of IP addreses into a much smaller space. And, this is how your home internet connection works too!
May 17, 2024 · 44 min
Episode 17: Rainbows
In episode 17, Shane and Dave explain the surprising science of rainbows. Can you touch one? Does everyone else see the same rainbow that you see?
Apr 11, 2024 · 32 min
Episode 16: ChatGPT
In episode 16, Shane and Dave explain how GPTs work. GPTs are a type of large language model, and the most famous is ChatGPT.
Mar 19, 2024 · 59 min
Episode 15: DNS on the Internet
In episode 15, Shane and Dave explain the Domain Name Service, which is how your web browser figures out the IP addresses to use for domain names like google.com
Mar 2, 2024 · 46 min
Episode 14: Alexa
In episode 14, Shane and Dave explain how Alexa works. Alexa is the most popular household voice assistant. Find out how Alexa works on the inside!
Feb 10, 2024 · 1 hr 5 min
Episode 13: Telecommunications part 5, reliable communication with TCP
In episode 13, Shane and Dave explain how the internet ensures that data is delivered between computers reliably and in order.
Jan 8, 2024 · 47 min
Episode 12: Telecommunications Part 4, the internet!
In episode 12, Shane and Dave continue explaining the saga of telecommunications. Computer networks! How the technologies work that power the internet.
Dec 23, 2023 · 53 min
Episode 11: Explaining Computers Part 2
In episode 11, Shane and Dave continue explaining computers. This is the 2nd part in a to-be-determined-length saga.

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