Q&A rough cut

omg lol! first time i see your face after watching so many of your videos, damn it feels like you are lip syncing. loved watching the Q&A btw

What thoughtful comments, I like that analogy a lot!

3blue1brown

Khan Academy videos seem to be someone with a digital pen and an outline of what the video is supposed to address, and then they just barrel along until they've addressed everything on that list... Whether they talk about something for 10 minutes or not. And then they just leave everything in there. 3B1B videos seem to just explore mathematical concepts and try to fully utilize graphics and control of the story in order to find a deeper understanding for those concepts besides just rote memory or from forming muscle memory. When I need to be a robot, Khan Academy videos are great for getting the procedure down and for the specific class they address. When I want to be human, I come to 3B1B videos to find a better way to apply my robotness as well as find new ways to be a robot. Your videos take longer than Khan Academy because there are different priorities. Khan Academy is helping the desperate students who don't care about the visual quality, just "how does one do this procedure?", among other things. 3B1B is trying to bring in anyone who wants to think about Math but focuses on making everything of an acceptable quality so that the video will attract "non-Math" people and show them they will always be "Math" people. Both Khan Academy and 3B1B do great work for their respective audience. I like how 3B1B does things but hope you think about the Math (structure/patterns) of video production and continue to find a balance between quality, content, production time, and enjoyable creation which is acceptable to you.

Hmm, I'm struggling as it is to say all that I want without things running way too long, so I'd say it's outside the scope I have in mind. I can't say I know of any good resources like the ones you're asking about right off the top of my head, but I'll keep an eye out.

3blue1brown

Also excited for quaternions. Just recently came across the concept of dual quaternions, which allegedly can extend quaternions to be able to represent translations in addition to rotations in a compact and elegant way (as a rotation about the point at infinity?). Any chance these will be touched on? If these are outside of the scope on what you are planning for quaternions, are there any other introductory resources you might be able to recommend for building intuition about how these work? You briefly mentioned that quantum algorithms are well suited for any problems involving unitary transformations, so now I'm also wondering if quantum algorithms using dual quaternions might be useful for solving rigid systems of physical constraints!

Jason Hise

Very excited for quaternions

Just saw the final version, and it is great. Regarding the probability series... While you are the final arbiter on whether it is good enough to release, don't be dissuaded by the 'volume' of other videos on the topic. My daughter is good at math (oops, not supposed to say that) but struggled with probability. I found it very hard to explain as well (cuz, I didn't understand it either). Most videos on the topic just don't instill that missing insight to finally get the big picture. 3Blue1Brown videos are unique in that way, and will definitely be a contribution to the resources. I am 6 sigma sure of it. Whatever that means.

I don't know what you should drop, but here are some things I recommend you keep: (1) the first part where you describe your background, data-science, phd option etc. because I found it interesting (2) alien's math - because you sound passionate about it (3) enough to convey the time-per-video (4) some short Q/A, so it does not end up too focused :-)

Edith Dubiner

I've been waiting for years for someone to address quaternions!

I've heard the sentiment that one shouldn't 'let the perfect become the enemy of the good' expressed by a few different people, and I have to dissent. One thing I love about the 3b1b channel is that I can show people one of my favourites, then turn them loose and say 'honestly, you really can't go wrong with any of these videos so just click on whatever sounds interesting to you'. I think that sort of trustworthiness is made possible by having a content filter that weeds out some of the work that Grant isn't totally happy with. Maybe that extra content can find a home in a second channel or something but so far I think the balance between quality and quantity has been deftly struck.

Thanks for the kind words, and for the continued support. There's certainly a lot of value in adapting material that's already out there into a format that's easier for people to understand, in fact that describes quite a bit of what I've done. But insofar as I only have finite time, if there are multiple potential projects to sink my teeth into, I'll always try to choose the one that feels more original.

3blue1brown

Maybe I don't understand, what are you referring to? This particular video was super quick, since it just involved sitting down to answer questions.

3blue1brown

Hi Grant, one advice I would give you regarding work being not perfect to put out. As they say in writing courses "Don't let good be the enemy of perfect". You have put out lot of extraordinary content and we are glad about that. But just because your other work is not that compelling shouldn't restrict you. Repeating the advice again, "Don't let Good be the enemy of Perfect"

I liked all the questions, even the off camera ones, though I think it would be most reasonable if they were to be cut off. As for the other questions I think it's all pretty relevant (I wouldn't make a good editor if I had to work in the audiovisual industry).

Rodrigo Ângelo

Why is there a screen in the background that isn’t being used? 🤔

Serious positive rant: Like most people capable of thinking abstract stuff, you seem NOT to acknowledge some cool real stuff: Your voice is engaging. Period. Read that again. Your voice IS engaging. If you ever suffered math being recited upon you with a monotonous voice by a bad teacher (those who think their job is to push-deliver the curriculum math upon kids), then you might understand... I was one of the kids who was “good at maths” from the start, despite hating with all my guts the delivery [lack of] style of all my primary and secondary teachers of math. Until I met a Mr Fussaro, who for my first time at age 17, made me understand that geometry and arithmetic were two sides of the same coin, not two different and disjoint sets of stuff you just must learn. I started to love math at 17 when I could understand financial math graphically first, then from the shape deduce what kind of function it was, and reverse engineer the actual formula from it. It changed my life, in the same way I think you are finally giving understanding - to me at age 60 - of stuff that I would like to have understood at 10. I have been your supporter for a while, in better financial times with more money than today, because I’m an avid supporter of making math “suckable” by students, as opposed to plain “math sucks”. Dude (said as the highest honorific title in the virtual fraternity): you’re enabling a generation of YouTube native students. I learnt to read at age 5, in order to read my grandpa chess strategy books, my grandpa taught me chess before I ever went to school. Reading was a tool to access knowledge. Some kid out there, will learn to read, to understand the text of your videos (believe me, YouTube is an aid for otherwise would be many complete anAlphabet kids out there). So, don’t banalise your communication skills, you could be a night time driving companion radio chat show host. You have a brain and you’re using it for math. Great. But continue leveraging in what you do best, which is inspire people to WANT to understand things they don’t understand yet, but that thanks to you and your videos, are deemed by them, as NOW understandable. The fact that there are tons of video of other stuff that YOU already understand, does not make that other stuff palatable to your audience. There’s a lot of good stuff. But there’s even more bad teaching style stuff, that covers subjects you might think are already covered, though that stuff is not properly covered yet, your style-wise. You’re not filing for patents. It doesn’t need novelty of subject. Yet: Your stuff has novelty in the ENGAGING WAY you make it understandable - as a student pull process - not as a teacher push down the student’s throat. You’re - chronologically - my second greatest teacher. Because you allow me - and hopefully millions of others - to WANT to learn. That’s why patrons support you.

I would love for you to do another channel focused on simply produced videos that just dive into simple topics. There's even a channel I recently started following called LetsSolveMathProblems, which literally just solves math problems. Most of the time it's uninteresting, but he does sometimes delve into proofs of interesting things (e.g. proof that e is irrational), and getting your interesting insights in the context of random proofs/problems could be great. + easy to produce.

Edan Maor

The reflection of someone walking around is rather distracting and your chair isn't facing the camera.

I might have to disagree with you about fluid flow and how perhaps uninteresting you're able to make it. When we learned about "Transport Phenomena" using the Bird, Stewart, Lightfoot text, our lecturer was able to make it fully engaging. And that was just on a whiteboard. He was able to derive the equation for hydrostatic pressure using just a cube of dx/dy/dz and principles of conversation of momentum and it's stuck with me. Same with flow through a tube and others. I know if anyone can do it, it's you Grant :)

Caleb Pheloung

how long did it take you to animate this one? bit of a departure

Part of it is that Stenhaug has been away for the summer. But I think we all enough doubt as to what our intentions with it are that the result has been stagnation.

3blue1brown

What really happened to the podcast?? :)

Jonathan Fuzaro Alencar

You sound exactly like a friend of mine. So, the last couple of years, this friend has been teaching me all about math. The weird part is that now here with this video, he's done the voiceover.

Links? Is there an instance where assuming something is a potential flow gives a model that actually matches experiment? I agree it's beautiful, which is why I started to get into it in the first place. It's still not off the table...we'll see.

3blue1brown

I always suspected you were Sal Khan's alter-ego.

grovermatic

He could start this by holding up the "Randy the Pi" plush figure instead.

I always figured Quantum Computing uses the fourier transform because the momentum wavefunction is the fourier transformation of the position wavefunction (or inverse)-

I can totally help you on the value of conformal mapping in fluid flow and why it is so awesome and useful. I remember the first time I saw it in a graduate level class and was blown away. It may be idealized, but shows genuine ingenuity in solving hard problems using a simple trick. It also could be a great lead-in to LaPlace transformations, which is also devilishly ingenious.

Woah grant you can't just jump right into it, it's the first time we get to associate a face to your voice! Maybe mention "hi! this is me, that's my face, this video is a Q&A, enjoy" lol

Ofir Kedar

I'll add some on-screen text to show what they're saying, if I do choose to keep those parts in.

3blue1brown

Don't let me halt your learning! It'll still be a few weeks before its out. And hopefully what I have to offer will be sufficiently different from other resources you find.

3blue1brown

I love you too :)

3blue1brown

Thanks Eliza. Clearly when push comes to shove, I do agree with you that production quality matters, given how much time I put into things. But as far as measuring how effective a video is at teaching, that's where I'm less sure. If it gets more people watching, and hence more people learning, great!

3blue1brown

Very strange experience hearing the 3B1B voice and seeing an actual human face rather than a pi creature!

Campbell McLauchlan

Not much to cut here! Can't wait for quaternions. Though I do have to disagree with you on production quality. A huge reason I love your videos so much is because they are both beautifully explained and beautiful to watch :)

Eliza

Thanks Grant for the life changing videos you make. They definitely have a positive impact on people. Thanks for making this world a bit better place. We love you.

Something on this could be good, though it is of course a huge topic. As huge as they get. Can you do me a favor and add it to this reddit thread: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/3Blue1Brown/comments/8u46tt/3blue1brown_video_suggestions/?utm_content=title&amp;utm_medium=hot&amp;utm_source=reddit&amp;utm_name=3Blue1Brown" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.reddit.com/r/3Blue1Brown/comments/8u46tt/3blue1brown_video_suggestions/?utm_content=title&amp;utm_medium=hot&amp;utm_source=reddit&amp;utm_name=3Blue1Brown</a> That's where I keep track of things, and see how others respond to requests.

3blue1brown

Not much to cut - but glad I got to see it all :)

Jase Smith

Was going to look up quaternions, but now I know that’s your current project I shan’t seek out spoilers!

Robert Lamacraft

It's all pretty good, don't cut too much! Suggestion box input: Do you think a video about the Langlands Program would be too heavy of a lift? (Ed Frenkel snuck a version of it into his biography, Love and Math, which you might have read. But an animated version could be nice. Maybe.)

The off camera questions are not easily heard. I would put them on the chopping block first. Alternatively, just echo back the question so we know what question you are answering.

white beard geek

Fantastic! Also, you look much younger for your mature voice. :-)