[steamer25]

3Blue1Brown has a good series on YouTube for building intuition in linear algebra:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2x...

In one of the last videos in the (relatively short) series, he discusses eigen-*:

~'eigen-stuffs are straight-forward but only make sense if you have a solid visual understanding of the pre-requisites (linear transformations, determinants, linear systems of equations, change of basis, etc.). Confusion about eigen-stuffs usually has more to do with a shaky foundation than the eigen-things themselves'

https://youtu.be/PFDu9oVAE-g

All of the videos in the series, including this later one on eigen-things, focus on animations to show what the number crunching is doing to the coordinate system.

[AceJohnny2]

3Blue1Brown (Grant Sanderson) is really, really good. I follow a number of education channels on YouTube, and Grant blows them all out of the water for the kind of insights, new perspectives, and inspiration he provides. His animations are fantastically put together to clearly and unobtrusively illustrate the point he's making. I also really like his voice, soothing, clear and with enough intonation to avoid boredom, and perfect pace. I wish I had his linear algebra series back in college, I suspect I would have done much better.

He's the creator I support the most on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/3blue1brown

[picklesman]

I’ve taken 3 college level courses on linear algebra and only really got an intuition for eigenvectors/eigenvalues when watching his video series. Super great!

[emmelaich]

I had problems with Principal Component Analysis; nice to see he's got one on that as well!

http://setosa.io/ev/principal-component-analysis/

(edit: ugh, contains an ad for MacKeeper)

[jjoonathan]

What, you don't want to remove your mac from trash?

Incidentally, that particular grammatical quirk is one I've seen a number of times. Is it a thing for people coming from Russian? Or just general difficulty with remembering the order of the two subjects in two-subject phrases?

[bashcorrupt]

>I follow a number of education channels on YouTube

Any recommendations? I would love to look into channels that you think are like 3Blue1Brown but in other subjects (natural sciences, history, art etc.).

[AceJohnny2]

Edit: I realize I overlooked the "like 3Blue1Brown" prereq, instead sharing a list of the educational/interesting channels I find worthwhile. The most like 3Blue1Brown will be the PBS ones (especially SpaceTime), MinutePhysics, and Mathologer, for using diagrams to convey abstract concepts.

PBS Space Time and Eons are both awesome:

* PBS Space Time, covers cosmology and quantum physics:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g

* PBS Eons, for geology and paleontology:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzR-rom72PHN9Zg7RML9EbA

* Smarter Every Day, Destin's enthusiasm is contagious:

https://www.youtube.com/user/destinws2

* Extra Credits various topics (video game design, History, and recently history of Sci-Fi) are great:

https://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCreditz

* Today I Found Out is just on this side of clickbaity, and is this age's "Ripley's Believe It Or Not", but still interesting and more importantly well researched:

https://www.youtube.com/user/TodayIFoundOut

* Crash Course, of course:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX6b17PVsYBQ0ip5gyeme-Q

* Gaming Historian, for some insight into the making of systems that formed my (and earlier) childhood:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnbvPS_rXp4PC21PG2k1UVg

* Minute Physics, whose latest few videos made Special Relativity understandable to this peon:

https://www.youtube.com/user/minutephysics/videos

* Practical Engineering, for some insight into civil engineering topics that we take for granted:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMOqf8ab-42UUQIdVoKwjlQ

* Real Engineering, for insight into various other mechanical engineering topics:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR1IuLEqb6UEA_zQ81kwXfg

* Standup Maths, host Matt Parker was the first to make maths approachable for me again (before 3Blue1Brown took the lead):

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSju5G2aFaWMqn-_0YBtq5A

* Steve Mould, who covers various topics both mathematical and physical. You may have seen that gif of him demonstrating the "levitating" siphoning "pearl necklace" (also a friend of Matt Parker, above):

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEIwxahdLz7bap-VDs9h35A

* The 8-Bit Guy, for some history of early home computer systems:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8uT9cgJorJPWu7ITLGo9Ww

* Numberphile, the second-greatest math channel (after 3Blue1Brown), whose recent video finally made me take the Golden Ratio seriously, rather than an architectural gimmick/conspiracy theory:

https://www.youtube.com/user/numberphile

* Mathologer, another good math channel (but I must sheepishly admit I prefer 3Blue1Brown... sensing a pattern here?):

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1_uAIS3r8Vu6JjXWvastJg

* Periodic Videos, for chemistry and physics, often featuring the iconic Dr Martyn Poliakoff:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtESv1e7ntJaLJYKIO1FoYw

* NileRed, for some homegrown chemistry, I particularly appreciate the candor of the approach and results:

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRedNile

Not quite as much "educational", but still very very good:

* Every Frame A Painting, now finished, but a great explanation of what makes good cinematography:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjFqcJQXGZ6T6sxyFB-5i6A

* NoClip, long-form documentaries about the making-of video games. Danny O'Dwyer is a treasure:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0fDG3byEcMtbOqPMymDNbw

Apologies for the link spam, this list turned out longer than I expected as I went down my subscriptions, and I've probably missed a few worthy ones!

Edit the final: I discovered many of these channels through referrals from others I was watching, including from the twitter feeds of the authors. Turns out the educational landscape on YouTube is a well-connected graph!

[swaggyBoatswain]

I just realized I had 80% of these subscribed already, then I looked at how many channels I subscribed too (700+)

I like tinkering with things so I have some mechanical / electrical engineering / makers on my list as well.

I listed my favorites of that list here

* Tom Scott - Lots of interesting unique topics related to engineering, programming, and history

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBa659QWEk1AI4Tg--mrJ2A

* Colin Furze - Lots of crazy welding projects

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBa659QWEk1AI4Tg--mrJ2A

* Mark rober - ex-nasa engineer, similar to SmarterEveryDay

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY1kMZp36IQSyNx_9h4mpCg

* Hacksmith - just interesting project build videos normally related to marvel comics

https://www.youtube.com/user/MstrJames

* Live overflow - web / binary hacking with great case studies

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClcE-kVhqyiHCcjYwcpfj9w

* Wendover productions - Great documenatires on things like Airplane and shippping logistics

https://www.youtube.com/wendoverproductions

* Strange parts - ex-programmer who sources components and parts overseas

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO8DQrSp5yEP937qNqTooOw

[AceJohnny2]

700? Damn! And I have trouble tracking what to watch with my few dozen subscriptions!

Also, something rant about YouTube's recommendation engine, that doesn't mesh with my subscriptions into account well enough, offering many videos from channels I don't subscribe to and not enough from those I do subscribe to. Does it work better for you with your firehose of subscriptions?

[swaggyBoatswain]

Youtubes recommendations are terrible but occasionally I find some good things. Firehosing my videos subs this way has not made the experience any better

I tend to have a really bad habit of subbing things I dont really need too. I used subbing more as a way to "bookmark" channels I like. I do the same with github, I am that type of person that 700ish repos bookmarked

I do put alerts on channels I know won't constantly spam me with too many videos (e.g. smarter everyday, wendover productions, mark rober, tom scott, primitive technology). Usually i watch every video that gets released there

I dont put alerts on channels that are good quality but high spam (e.g. casey neistat, tested, vsauce, etc). Normally i just binge watch these in one setting.

I dont put alerts on any programming or shiny tech channels. Like tutorials on how to use react, etc. I go to youtube to get away from all of that and would naturally seek those videos out with search terms anyhow.

I put a like button on every video ive watched that doesnt suck and leave comments to timestamp videos. I put dislike on videos that are poorly explained or didntt work for me (e.g. these are usually how to install xyz videos). This way i can instantly know if I've seen a video before ans found it useful or had to debug something years later (IT type stuff) to find it didnt work out

If i liked a video i check the top comment if its mine.

Basically I use google and youtube as my own personal search repository. Its like forking a github repo and adding annotations. I treat it the same way. If im going to 9 times out of 10 google something in the end, i might as well make the process easier to do next time.

Im still looking for a better UX youtube experience that doesnt suck. Havent found it yet.

How i would like to have it is organized by the following.

1. High quality videos low spam first uptop in feed.

2. Everything else sorted by its video category type and or playlist

3. General recommendations from youtube

[emmelaich]

Awesome but no Vsauce?

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6nSFpj9HTCZ5t-N3Rm3-HA

[AceJohnny2]

Y'know, I hesitated. I admit I'm somewhat ambivalent about VSauce, because Michael's somewhat wandering style makes it closer to entertainment than the usually more focused topics the other channels on my list work with. That said, Vsauce is definitely interesting and great for fostering curiosity and an inquisitive mindset.

Also his new channel DONG ("Do Online Now Guys"... wut?):

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClq42foiSgl7sSpLupnugGA

Also I should've mentioned Veritasium:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHnyfMqiRRG1u-2MsSQLbXA

[chaotic_clanger]

seems that pbs has a new one on Noethers theorem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04ERSb06dOg

[bashcorrupt]

Thank you! Introduces me to a whole new universe out there!

[smrq]

Just to throw in my own anecdote, I took linear algebra twice (in high school with no college credit, and in college) and I still couldn't ever remember afterwards what an eigenvector was until I watched that series. Now I'll probably never forget. He is an astonishing educator.

[bladecatcher]

It’s possible to understand eigen-* without having an understanding of determinants. That’s how they’re introduced in “Linear Algebra Done Right” - http://linear.axler.net/

[tgb]

And they exist in situations where determinants are difficult or impossible to define! Infinite dimensional vector spaces can still have transformations with eigenvectors but you generally can't define a determinant coherently for them (certainly they might have infinitely many eigenvalues and if the determinant is the product, then you have convergence problems). A classic example is that the standard Gaussian distribution is an eigenvector of the Fourier transform.

[in9]

You just blew my mind with this comment. I'm a statistics undergrad student and I really need to up my math knowledge. Where is this fact from? Functional analysis?

[tgb]

Yeah that would be a good course to learn it - functional analysis is basically linear algebra on infinite dimensional vector spaces. (Though that sells it a little short - moving to infinite dimensional vector spaces requires incorporating some topology too.)

[swaggyBoatswain]

I just finished watching both his calculus series and linear algebra. I have to say 3blue1brown has made a mathematical masterpiece of a youtube series

Neither of those subjects really clicked with me until I could visualize it in a 2D / 3D representation