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She seems to have good credentials and mostly sticks to claims that seem to have some evidence...but her penchant for clickbait titles and other YouTube algorit

She seems to have good credentials and mostly sticks to claims that seem to have some evidence...but her penchant for clickbait titles and other YouTube algorithm hacking commentary makes it hard to take her seriously.

dmix 4y ago
She's a professional YouTuber (among other work), those sites basically require you to do that sort of thing to get and maintain traction over the long term. This one isn't particularily bad and the content is fine.
- messe 4y ago
  That’s a bit unfair toward her. She’s not just a professional YouTuber. She is also a bonafide[1] physicist, who has spent years acting as a contrarian to the mainstream ideas. [1]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AuOlHBbUkX4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AuOlHBbUkX4
  - blindriver 4y ago
    Professional Youtuber != Full-time Youtuber.
    - rhaway84773 4y ago
      Yeah but calling her a “professional YouTuber (among other work)” is a very blatant misrepresentation of who she actually is, considering the opinion most people, especially on this site, would have of a YouTuber. An HNer who does not know of her would almost certainly come away with the idea that much like most YTers, she doesn’t know much of what she is talking about. When in reality, she’s a bona-fide professional physicist, whose knowledge of physics is why she’s a YT personality. Before she was a YTer she had (and possibly still does) have one of the better physics blogs on the internet as well.
      - dmix 4y ago
        She's pretty well known on HN and anyone who cared to find out could easily, I wasn't worried about that. Nothing wrong with making a living being popular on YouTube for making physics videos. Even if you have to occasionally bend titles to the algorithm.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - JeremyBanks 4y ago
        [dead]
JeremyBanks 4y ago
Is it clickbait? It’s slightly provocative but the content seems to live up to it. She’s deconstructing absolutist nonsense into something less absolutist. It’s almost anti-clickbait.
mr_mitm 4y ago
She also seems to really enjoy taking contrarian views, which resonates with a lot of people who distrust "the scientific establishment" or who "want to believe".
- kelnos 4y ago
  This is the thing that bothers me about her videos, though. Certainly established science should be challenged when there is the potential that something isn't quite right. (Science itself may be "perfect", but it is performed and chronicled by flawed, biased humans.) But I feel like she takes a contrarian view just for the sake of being contrarian, so it's hard to tell which of her ideas actually have merit, and which simply exist to challenge the status quo, even when the status quo is conclusively proven. Edit: that said, I really do want to believe this! The speed of light being an absolute limit to how fast we can travel (or even communicate), means most of the universe (even most of the galaxy) will be forever out of reach to us. And that's kinda depressing. Unfortunately, physics doesn't care if I'm sad or happy about it. Edit2: on the other hand (I wrote the above after only having watched have the video, shame on me), I do find compelling her idea that some mathematical constructs (like special relativity) inherently cannot fully describe reality (in SR's case, SR doesn't include gravity). So saying "special relativity says FTL travel causes time paradoxes and thus cannot be possible" may be true, but since SR can't fully describe reality (hell, neither can GR), maybe it just doesn't matter. That doesn't prove that FTL travel/communication is actually possible, but at least suggests that we shouldn't be so adamant about it being impossible. But who knows, IANAPhysicist, etc.
  - misnome 4y ago
    Most of her arguments seem to end up along “everything currently funded should be canceled and what I am doing should be funded instead”, which I find extremely hard to take seriously. That, or yes - clickbait contrarian. This seems to get a lot of loud followers though.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      > That, or yes - clickbait contrarian. This seems to get a lot of loud followers though. Which I guess shouldn't be surprising. Loud followings are usually created by saying things that are controversial, or offensive.
blindriver 4y ago
Give her a break. Unfortunately the way search is these days, you need to use clickbait titles even if your content is great. So it's part and parcel with our times and how the Algorithm works, unfortunately.
i-use-nixos-btw 4y ago
On the other hand, without the click bait titles and other YouTube algorithm hacking, how many of us would have watched it? I’m happy having watched it. The argument about particles travelling at light speed and then suddenly having mass and travelling below light speed is one that I haven’t heard before. The note about 0/0 being finite rubbed me the wrong way, but I see the point.

dmix 4y ago

She's a professional YouTuber (among other work), those sites basically require you to do that sort of thing to get and maintain traction over the long term. This one isn't particularily bad and the content is fine.

messe 4y ago
That’s a bit unfair toward her. She’s not just a professional YouTuber. She is also a bonafide[1] physicist, who has spent years acting as a contrarian to the mainstream ideas. [1]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AuOlHBbUkX4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AuOlHBbUkX4
- blindriver 4y ago
  Professional Youtuber != Full-time Youtuber.
  - rhaway84773 4y ago
    Yeah but calling her a “professional YouTuber (among other work)” is a very blatant misrepresentation of who she actually is, considering the opinion most people, especially on this site, would have of a YouTuber. An HNer who does not know of her would almost certainly come away with the idea that much like most YTers, she doesn’t know much of what she is talking about. When in reality, she’s a bona-fide professional physicist, whose knowledge of physics is why she’s a YT personality. Before she was a YTer she had (and possibly still does) have one of the better physics blogs on the internet as well.
    - dmix 4y ago
      She's pretty well known on HN and anyone who cared to find out could easily, I wasn't worried about that. Nothing wrong with making a living being popular on YouTube for making physics videos. Even if you have to occasionally bend titles to the algorithm.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - JeremyBanks 4y ago
      [dead]

JeremyBanks 4y ago

Is it clickbait? It’s slightly provocative but the content seems to live up to it. She’s deconstructing absolutist nonsense into something less absolutist. It’s almost anti-clickbait.

mr_mitm 4y ago

She also seems to really enjoy taking contrarian views, which resonates with a lot of people who distrust "the scientific establishment" or who "want to believe".

kelnos 4y ago
This is the thing that bothers me about her videos, though. Certainly established science should be challenged when there is the potential that something isn't quite right. (Science itself may be "perfect", but it is performed and chronicled by flawed, biased humans.) But I feel like she takes a contrarian view just for the sake of being contrarian, so it's hard to tell which of her ideas actually have merit, and which simply exist to challenge the status quo, even when the status quo is conclusively proven. Edit: that said, I really do want to believe this! The speed of light being an absolute limit to how fast we can travel (or even communicate), means most of the universe (even most of the galaxy) will be forever out of reach to us. And that's kinda depressing. Unfortunately, physics doesn't care if I'm sad or happy about it. Edit2: on the other hand (I wrote the above after only having watched have the video, shame on me), I do find compelling her idea that some mathematical constructs (like special relativity) inherently cannot fully describe reality (in SR's case, SR doesn't include gravity). So saying "special relativity says FTL travel causes time paradoxes and thus cannot be possible" may be true, but since SR can't fully describe reality (hell, neither can GR), maybe it just doesn't matter. That doesn't prove that FTL travel/communication is actually possible, but at least suggests that we shouldn't be so adamant about it being impossible. But who knows, IANAPhysicist, etc.
- misnome 4y ago
  Most of her arguments seem to end up along “everything currently funded should be canceled and what I am doing should be funded instead”, which I find extremely hard to take seriously. That, or yes - clickbait contrarian. This seems to get a lot of loud followers though.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    > That, or yes - clickbait contrarian. This seems to get a lot of loud followers though. Which I guess shouldn't be surprising. Loud followings are usually created by saying things that are controversial, or offensive.

blindriver 4y ago

Give her a break. Unfortunately the way search is these days, you need to use clickbait titles even if your content is great. So it's part and parcel with our times and how the Algorithm works, unfortunately.

i-use-nixos-btw 4y ago

On the other hand, without the click bait titles and other YouTube algorithm hacking, how many of us would have watched it? I’m happy having watched it. The argument about particles travelling at light speed and then suddenly having mass and travelling below light speed is one that I haven’t heard before. The note about 0/0 being finite rubbed me the wrong way, but I see the point.