3blue1brown gives me hope that there are a few Michael Jordan level teachers out there, and youtube/the internet will allow us to find those people and reward them appropriately
Lessons by 3blue1brown
41–50 of 130 posts
Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown
#42I'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.
I think 3blue1brown gives you great starting intuition. When you work more deeply with a subject, you develop intuition that is more general and precise, and you understand the relationship between the simple model you started with and the more complex and nuanced understanding you developed over time. A different starting intuition than the one you started with won't be as good as your experienced intuition, and it won't be integrated with it, either, so it would feel like a step back.
Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown
#432b1b 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'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.
Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown
#442b1b 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.
While we're at it. Ben Eater is the equivalent for Computer / Electronics fundamentals. Check him out of you haven't before.
Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown
#453b1b is doing everyone a huge favor with these lessons. Teaching is certainly a lot different today. Decreased attention spans, underfunded schools, and ChatGPT make it a lot harder, but online modules and tutorials like these make it a lot easier.
The problem is that you can learn many things, but time is limited. Learning and understanding abstract concepts won't make you more successful, increase your SMV and give you access to better mating opportunities. What's the use of arcane knowledge about prime numbers if you are not mathematician, and even then, one should question its importance? Time is often better spent learning about crucial factors of success…
All of this conditions on having a single goal: career success, or any other singular goal. Feeling the need to hustle non-stop might not be the 'best', whatever that means :)
Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just listen to some music with spectrum visualization, this is a Fourier transform of what you are listening right now.
Well, yes. That part is obvious enough. The interesting part is how you build the mapping from time domain to frequency domain. That is the part that never clicked for me.
Maybe that's because a sinusoid of any frequence has its "roundness" and that is a matter of "hunting" which that formula performs every infinite-small moment to an x/y graph of your favourite music composition.
Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown
#47Just came here to say I love 3blue1brown
I second that. 3b1b is fantastic for developing a more intuitive understanding of mathematics. In my experience, having that intuition makes all the difference.
Math should really about understanding concepts and developing intuition, not about equations. The equations and formalisms are there to precisely codify our intuition and ensure (through proof) that our ideas are in fact correct, but they are less important than the intuition. It’s a shame that so much of our math education is focused on the former as opposed to the latter.
Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown
#482b1b 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'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.
See also https://betterexplained.com
Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown
#49I would love it if some of these educational YouTube videos came with exercises. I watch a lot of educational YouTube videos. But I've come to see them as more entertainment than education. Not in terms of the quality of the videos (which is often excellent), but in terms of what I retain. Sometimes I come across YouTube videos that YouTube claims I have watched, and I don't remember the first thing about them. I thi…
It would be awesome, but there’s a surfeit of material out there and these guys are doing it pro bono. Better to look at it as an entry point.
One thing I do is try to connect the concepts into textbooks I do have. Say I have an elementary proof about a cross product: try and tie that into the stuff about wedge products and exterior calculus I just learned about. Line integrals? Perfect opportunity to practice working with one-forms.
Another option for the mathematically inclined is to pause and prove everything if you feel you aren’t getting it good enough, or to build up your own visual picture from first principles as much as possible rather than memorizing the video’s presentation.
Re: Lessons by 3blue1brown
#502b1b 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'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.
It's much like open source vs corporate, but not quite. The bazaar really is better than the cathedral.