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Lessons by 3blue1brown

3blue1brown.com

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Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown

#121

Post by jackling »

dingosity wrote: post #3
jackling wrote: post #2

I'm likely in the minority, but I found 3blue1brown videos difficult to understand and they usually give me a worse intuition about a concept than I previously had. I wonder why that is. Seems like most people I know swear by his videos.

Well. I mean. We all have different ways we learn. Are there youtube channels that HAVE worked for you?

Tibees (https://www.youtube.com/@tibees) I found very helpful. Usually I buy textbooks when I want to learn something new. It could just be that I'm not a good visual learner.

Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown

#122

Post by jackling »

mliker wrote: post #18
jackling wrote: post #2

I'm likely in the minority, but I found 3blue1brown videos difficult to understand and they usually give me a worse intuition about a concept than I previously had. I wonder why that is. Seems like most people I know swear by his videos.

That's the first time I've heard that. Curious what about it makes it harder for you. That's a shame, but it seems like 3b1b doesn't cater to your learning style!

After thinking about it a bit, I believe it may be 2 different things.

1) When I learn something, I like daydreaming about it and coming up with a mental model of how it is in my own head. So, having someone else's vision and animations used can screw up my own mental model and make it harder for me to forge connections between concepts.

2) I enjoy rigorous math more. I find it hard to make logical leaps and assume properties about things unless they were previously established as facts. This is why I like analysis a lot, althought I'm not great at it. I think 3B1B is more informal when explaining things, and the lack of rigour confuses me over time. Especially in a longer video.

Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown

#123

Post by aeternum »

rjh29 wrote: post #25
dingosity wrote: post #7

2b1b does a video on how you raise e to a matrix (hint: raising something to e is converted into another function where it's not nonsensical to do such a thing.) In about 10 minutes he explains something my math methods instructor struggled with over two weeks (4 classes). I was resistant to the view that YouTube could host "decent" instructional content for a long time. That video was one of the first that was CLEAR…

> I was resistant to the view that YouTube could host "decent" instructional content for a long time. There is SO much good content on there though. I can only guess "the algorithm" was hiding it from you. Sadly we often have to rely on sites like reddit or HN to find these creators.

the algorithm is actually quite good but you need to give it signal. Most people prefer entertaining videos over educational videos. If that's what you tend to click, that's what it will show you.

Entertaining is hard to resist, so just create a second account and curate the history of one of them.

Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown

#124

Post by rjh29 »

aeternum wrote: post #123
rjh29 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was resistant to the view that YouTube could host "decent" instructional content for a long time. There is SO much good content on there though. I can only guess "the algorithm" was hiding it from you. Sadly we often have to rely on sites like reddit or HN to find these creators.

the algorithm is actually quite good but you need to give it signal. Most people prefer entertaining videos over educational videos. If that's what you tend to click, that's what it will show you. Entertaining is hard to resist, so just create a second account and curate the history of one of them.

It's good for me too, but it took a very long time to train it to stop giving me 'YouTube face' videos, clickbait bullshit, Linus Tech Tips, politics, Amber Heard etc. And it still sometimes serves that up if there's a new topic.

I also find my feed doesn't change that much, so the downside of being picky is that you might miss out on some good content.

Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown

#125

Post by MawKKe »

jackling wrote: post #2

I'm likely in the minority, but I found 3blue1brown videos difficult to understand and they usually give me a worse intuition about a concept than I previously had. I wonder why that is. Seems like most people I know swear by his videos.

When I took a "presentation skills" course at Uni, they taught us that humans are very bad at reading and listening at the same time. Something about the brain regions utilized by these two activities overlap, and cannot be simultaneously be processing two different things. For this reason the visual portion of a presentation (slides) should be kept minimal and act as immediate support for the vocal portion of the presentation. If the two are not "in sync" the audience is unable to follow the presentation fully.

I think 3b1b videos constantly break this rule; there is a LOT of going on visually, while the narrator is talking non-stop about some loosely related things or trivia. More often than not I have to re-watch segments multiple times because I cannot understand what the hell am I supposed to be paying attention to.

Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown

#126

Post by adamc »

phkahler wrote: post #65
adamc wrote: post #26

Love this series; have been watching for a few years now. I wish we put more resources into educational materials of this level (and with this kind of universal access) as a country.

>> I wish we put more resources into educational materials of this level (and with this kind of universal access) as a country. I'm not sure that's possible. He is free to create videos on his own time, when he has a compelling idea how to present a topic. "put more resources" on a project sounds like funding with a specific agenda and plan - a committee-determined set of topics to cover and then push on creators wit…

You might be right, but I tend to think more people have ideas than can afford to follow them up.

Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown

#127

Post by dingosity »

webshit2 wrote: post #113
ChuckMcM wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I'm not being critical here, it was an impression from my visit. Lots of people I know (like gumby) and others have gone to MIT as undergraduates and really felt it was worthwhile. I really wanted to go to Caltech but only landed on the wait list and settled for USC (who offered better financial aid so there was that) My kids all ended up at various small private colleges depending on what they found as…

No worries, that's definitely a reasonable impression since there are way more postgrads than undergrads. I just wanted to point out that undergrads are allowed to participate in the 'action'. But of course there is the occasional bad class (Peter Shor is not that good at teaching Shor's algorithm).

For what it's worth, the lab classes I attended at the public university in Texas I attended after one quarter at MIT was essentially... "here's the key to the lab, knock yourself out. come find me if you have questions." The only reason we didn't make an initiator in the lab that year is we couldn't find the polonium.

Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown

#128

Post by dingosity »

inetknght wrote: post #43
jonahx wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had math instruction at the undergraduate and graduate level at top universities, with good instructors that I liked, and I can say without question YouTube is superior. There are many channels with outstanding content. This video is not an outlier.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching 3b1b's videos. They're very intuitive for me. > This video is not an outlier. I would argue: this video is an outlier in that it's "best of the best". I've seen other videos. While they're usually "good", they're also usually very dry.

And I've absolutely seen some "meh" videos. Apropos of nothing, I met Jim Blinn a month ago which got me thinking about "the mechanical universe" (from '85-'86) which was one of the first videos I saw that really "nailed it" in terms of using video to teach technical concepts.

So good videos aren't a new thing. But I think there's MUCH more decent and excellent content coming out these days.

Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown

#129

Post by dingosity »

impendia wrote: post #68
jonahx wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had math instruction at the undergraduate and graduate level at top universities, with good instructors that I liked, and I can say without question YouTube is superior. There are many channels with outstanding content. This video is not an outlier.

I am a math professor, and I try to do a good job teaching. Any topic that 3b1b covers, the video will give a better presentation than I would in a lecture hall! It is part of our job to lecture, but that's not our only job as an instructor, and I wouldn't even say it's the most important one. Our job is to assemble a coherent course -- typically involving lectures, homeworks, exams, etc. where everything is tied tog…

You clearly don't teach at MIT, where the professor's role is to be a glorified test proctor.

Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown

#130

Post by marshray »

lahvak wrote: post #118
geokon wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This probably won't be a very popular take.. but to me Fourier Transforms are the perfect example of the opposite problem - where the educators are so hellbound on constructing a visual explanation that they end up brain damaging the students. I've seen this come up several times in my math education. For the Fourier transform there are primarily two issue: 1. The "complex plane" - this tries to make complex numbers…

Ad 1.: Multiplication of complex numbers is a very intuitive operation on complex plane, the moment you realize you need to use polar coordinates.

Link? (please :-)
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