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Felt bad that I couldn’t stand one of the only female hard science YouTubers. Then I found Dr Becky: https://m.youtube.com/@DrBecky https://m.youtube.com/@DrBe

Felt bad that I couldn’t stand one of the only female hard science YouTubers. Then I found Dr Becky: https://m.youtube.com/@DrBecky https://m.youtube.com/@DrBecky Seems to know her shit and doesn’t seem to hate it.

was_a_dev 4y ago
This is essentially my thoughts. Dr Becky is a fantastic science communicator that is clearly very passionate and optimistic about her field
jackmott 4y ago
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maegul 4y ago
Agree. Also, from what I've gathered, she's relatively junior, in that she only recently completed her PhD and is a postdoc now (thus, I suspect, the "Dr" in the handle?). Which is a good thing! You're getting the perspective, energy, excitement, and focus of someone actually "on the ground" and still pumped about their field. One of the take aways I've got from what I've seen of academia (whether this applies to Sabine or not) is that you'd be surprised how disconnected a senior academic is from the current state of their field. Not that they're ignorant of the latest findings (though, again, you'd be surprised how little time they have actually read papers unless they have to), but they're often not doing actual research at all, not reading the latest papers as widely as a good postdoc would be, and see the field through older often outdated (though sometimes still valuable) lenses, and can be very distracted by their other responsibilities. A young excited researcher is genuinely looking out for the future of their field, and, IMO, I think you can see that Dr Becky
k2xl 4y ago
I actually love both Sabine and Dr Becky. I think they both do a great job with different styles.
sho_hn 4y ago
I find Hossenfelder's style to be very entertaining, it's lovely content. With some of the more opinionated videos I often wish I'd find another similar creator offering a rebuttal or context to help me sort in her take. Of course if you follow this to its logical conclusion you eventually hit "become a scientist, work with the material, form your own opinion", but well, a little bit more aggregation and summary would be of service to me. I guess what Hossenfelder offers me is content above the quality bar of most science journalism, on that spectrum.
- Retric 4y ago
  Hossenfelder can be entertaining, but even as a non specialist I’ve noticed either oversimplification or errors in her videos. So, I think she needs better collaboration with specialists when operating outside her specialty. The one that comes to mind is when talking about fusion she said the output energy of the reaction * efficiency must be > input energy which seems perfectly logical. Except the input energy doesn’t all disappear much of it ends up in the plasma which in a steady state is then converted at some efficiency to electricity again. This is why Q is considered independently of the total power used by the facility which goes on to invalidate much of the rest of the video. I don’t know if that was intentional oversimplification or a mistake on her part, but it makes me question the accuracy of her videos on other topics.
  - sho_hn 4y ago
    I've noticed a few things like this as well. I vaguely recall not liking a calculation in a nuclear energy video she did because she omitted thorium from the topic - I'm no expert, but I was awaiting her to address it next to her discussion of uranium reserves and was confused by its absence.
davrosthedalek 4y ago
There is also "My Journey as a Physicist". Haven't listened to it yet, but I hear good things from my colleagues. [1] https://sites.google.com/msu.edu/phy480905/home?pli=1 https://sites.google.com/msu.edu/phy480905/home?pli=1

was_a_dev 4y ago

This is essentially my thoughts. Dr Becky is a fantastic science communicator that is clearly very passionate and optimistic about her field

jackmott 4y ago

[dead]

maegul 4y ago

Agree. Also, from what I've gathered, she's relatively junior, in that she only recently completed her PhD and is a postdoc now (thus, I suspect, the "Dr" in the handle?). Which is a good thing! You're getting the perspective, energy, excitement, and focus of someone actually "on the ground" and still pumped about their field. One of the take aways I've got from what I've seen of academia (whether this applies to Sabine or not) is that you'd be surprised how disconnected a senior academic is from the current state of their field. Not that they're ignorant of the latest findings (though, again, you'd be surprised how little time they have actually read papers unless they have to), but they're often not doing actual research at all, not reading the latest papers as widely as a good postdoc would be, and see the field through older often outdated (though sometimes still valuable) lenses, and can be very distracted by their other responsibilities. A young excited researcher is genuinely looking out for the future of their field, and, IMO, I think you can see that Dr Becky

k2xl 4y ago

I actually love both Sabine and Dr Becky. I think they both do a great job with different styles.

sho_hn 4y ago

I find Hossenfelder's style to be very entertaining, it's lovely content. With some of the more opinionated videos I often wish I'd find another similar creator offering a rebuttal or context to help me sort in her take. Of course if you follow this to its logical conclusion you eventually hit "become a scientist, work with the material, form your own opinion", but well, a little bit more aggregation and summary would be of service to me. I guess what Hossenfelder offers me is content above the quality bar of most science journalism, on that spectrum.

Retric 4y ago
Hossenfelder can be entertaining, but even as a non specialist I’ve noticed either oversimplification or errors in her videos. So, I think she needs better collaboration with specialists when operating outside her specialty. The one that comes to mind is when talking about fusion she said the output energy of the reaction * efficiency must be > input energy which seems perfectly logical. Except the input energy doesn’t all disappear much of it ends up in the plasma which in a steady state is then converted at some efficiency to electricity again. This is why Q is considered independently of the total power used by the facility which goes on to invalidate much of the rest of the video. I don’t know if that was intentional oversimplification or a mistake on her part, but it makes me question the accuracy of her videos on other topics.
- sho_hn 4y ago
  I've noticed a few things like this as well. I vaguely recall not liking a calculation in a nuclear energy video she did because she omitted thorium from the topic - I'm no expert, but I was awaiting her to address it next to her discussion of uranium reserves and was confused by its absence.

davrosthedalek 4y ago

There is also "My Journey as a Physicist". Haven't listened to it yet, but I hear good things from my colleagues. [1] https://sites.google.com/msu.edu/phy480905/home?pli=1 https://sites.google.com/msu.edu/phy480905/home?pli=1