5 ms·

Science Communications on YouTube

39 points by azhenley 11mo ago

vinceguidry 10mo ago
Can't leave out Dr. Angela Collier: https://www.youtube.com/@acollierastro https://www.youtube.com/@acollierastro Hopefully author reads HN.
- andrewflnr 10mo ago
  She's very hit or miss in her quality IMO. Also, she's explicitly disclaimed the title of "science communicator", so she might not want to be on this list anyway. :) I kind of wish they hadn't included Veritasium either. He seems to have gone downhill.
  - MPSimmons 10mo ago
    I don't know to what extent it has directly impacted his quality, but it appears that Derek sold Veritasium to a private equity firm https://www.electrify.video/post/electrify-completes-majority-investment-in-veritasium https://www.electrify.video/post/electrify-completes-majorit...
    - hermitcrab 10mo ago
      I can't imagine that is going to end well. Hopefully I am wrong about that.
      - andrewflnr 10mo ago
        You're already right about that.
  - the__alchemist 10mo ago
    Her content is mostly meta, vs science comm/teaching. I am really torn on her: Great communicator, funny, accomplished. Seems confident/smug?/conservative for a scientist. Something about her word choice and style feels more politician than learner/researcher. Not sure how to phrase this.
    - andrewflnr 10mo ago
      That's an interesting perspective. I definitely don't get a "politician" tone from her. Her tone seems very casual to me. Conservative in the broad sense, maybe (definitely not politically).
      - the__alchemist 10mo ago
        Now that you point it out, I agree. Not sure the appropriate analogy.
    - vinceguidry 10mo ago
      I think this tone is definitely a deliberate creative choice, and is something I personally enjoy. I'm reminded of this line from Taylor Swift's new album: "did you girlboss too close to the sun?" It's borne out of the mountains of disrespect women scientists have to deal with, something she talks about towards the end of her video on Richard Feynman.
mat_b 10mo ago
No mention of PBS Space Time? That show is high quality.
- smokel 10mo ago
  Link for the lazy: https://www.youtube.com/c/pbsspacetime https://www.youtube.com/c/pbsspacetime
- gnz11 10mo ago
  PBS also did a recent live stream on the topic of science communication with some notable YouTubers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPKxk3s-8Yc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPKxk3s-8Yc
ThrowawayTestr 10mo ago
Some people might take issue with the Veritasium recommendation. I think he's great though.
- Workaccount2 10mo ago
  I was an avid viewer until he stepped in my area of expertise and leveraged technicalities, half-truths, and misrepresentation to really juice up the click-baityness and "wow!" factor. My interest in his videos plunged after that, and it seemed like he was re-alinging for consistent high views over straight hard factual education. Frankly I wish I could purge him from my feed at this point (youtube still recommends all his videos incessantly, despite me not watching one for at least a year now. On paper I am the ideal viewer though, so...)
  - estimator7292 10mo ago
    On your homepage, click the three dots next to a video and click "do not recommend channel" It's one of the very few things that actually work
    - AuthAuth 10mo ago
      Do not recommend channel doesnt work. It only pauses recommendations for a few weeks. I've selected do not recommend on channels several times and they still sneak back in.
      - dkdcio 10mo ago
        I highly recommend turning off watch history on YouTube. it stops recommending you videos entirely; just watch what you subscribe to
        AlexErrant 10mo ago
        I have a dedicated Chrome profile/account for watching videos that I don't want infecting my primary account's recommendations. Right click, "Open link as".
mmooss 10mo ago
Who has time for videos? I know lots watch them, but wow - reading is so much more efficient. I can skip ahead - and skim - or revisit; I can annotate; I can save, transcribe (copy/paste), I read so much faster than even accelerated video can play .... and all so much more easily. By sticking to reading, am I missing out on content? Edit: Not a criticism of watching video, I'm wondering if I'm missing substantial things. If I didn't read, for example, I'd miss a lot that doesn't exist in video or audio. Same thing with podcasts.
- jonahrd 10mo ago
  I'm a much more auditory/visual learner, so these videos work really great for me. I'm glad that reading works for you!
  - mmooss 10mo ago
    I'm not criticizing, sorry; just trying to understand. I find video more compelling, generally. Obviously video has more ways to communicate - graphically, empirically, etc. It's not that reading works more effectively, but far more efficiently.
- bane 10mo ago
  Let me turn your question around, what are the benefits of communicating science via video such that it's a very popular medium that people use to learn about science?
  - mmooss 10mo ago
    I think video is much more compelling to people in many ways (similar to TV vs reading a book), including to me. Part of that is seeing a person talking to you with all the cues of expression, voice, etc. There's a lower cognitive threshhold for engaging. Video also has communication modes that text/print lacks: dynamic graphics and empirical video (showing the thing itself happening), audio, speech and expression (as described above). With all that, I find it quite frustrating to see it consume so much time that could be spent reading and processing several things. How do others on HN - intellectually curious and serious, often busy - reconcile that? Though my question is really, am I missing things by not watching video - things I won't realistically get through print? I mean high-quality things - I want the equivelant of a paper, review paper, or book by a professional in the field.
zkmon 10mo ago
No 3B1B?
griffzhowl 10mo ago
For more in-depth physics, combining mathematical detail with excellent visualizations, the best channels I've found are Richard Behiel, Physics Explained, Dr Jorge Diaz For mathematics, I really appreciate the simpl but effective format of Richard Borcherds (Fields medalist) https://www.youtube.com/@richarde.borcherds7998 https://www.youtube.com/@richarde.borcherds7998
- panopoly 10mo ago
  > Richard Behiel Behiel is to 3Blue1Brown as a popular children's cartoon is to its late sequel series that aged up with its audience. Excellent work. I especially like his more recent trend of going line by line through famous papers. EPR and Bell's Inequality to date.
  - griffzhowl 10mo ago
    Yeah, those are huge... I haven't got round to them yet. I liked the one on electromagnetism as a gauge theory
xvilka 10mo ago
List is incomplete without some other high quality channels already mentioned in other threads, but also Anton Petrov[1]'s channel, Sixty Symbols[2], Science Clic[3] and Artem Kirsanov[4]. Animalogic[5] certainly worth mentioning. And absolutely stunning Journey to Microcosmos[6]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@whatdamath https://www.youtube.com/@whatdamath [2] https://www.youtube.com/@sixtysymbols https://www.youtube.com/@sixtysymbols [3] https://www.youtube.com/@ScienceClicEN https://www.youtube.com/@ScienceClicEN [4] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR2uRTQ53V_egXKFflMMaaw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR2uRTQ53V_egXKFflMMaaw [5] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwg6_F2hDHYrqbNSGjmar4w https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwg6_F2hDHYrqbNSGjmar4w [6] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBbnbBWJtwsf0jLGUwX5Q3g https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBbnbBWJtwsf0jLGUwX5Q3g
- ngruhn 10mo ago
  ScienceClic has extremely good animations. And it's run by some guy in his early 20s. He knows the physics, he can create these amazing animations and he comes up with genuinely novel metaphors and perspectives.
- andrewflnr 10mo ago
  I want to hijack this comment to plug AlphaPhoenix (https://youtube.com/@alphaphoenixchannel https://youtube.com/@alphaphoenixchannel), who is responsible for by far the best explanations of electricity that I've encountered in any format. For instance, this one that clarifies what happens when you try to send electricity on an open circuit, and (IIRC this is the right one) what impedance mismatch is actually about: https://youtu.be/2AXv49dDQJw https://youtu.be/2AXv49dDQJw
squeral 10mo ago
I found it strange that StarTalk hadn't been mentioned yet. Neil deGrasse Tyson is my favourite science communicator.
- thinkyfish 10mo ago
  An who can forget Lord Nice!
predkambrij 10mo ago
I recommend "YouTube Summary with ChatGPT & Claude" extension, which makes it easy to copy transcription. Paste it in Deepseek or your favourite LLM with prompt "summarize in 1 paragraph" and then you can run TTS and you get idea about of the video in 10 seconds. You can ask followup questions, or to format it differently or get the reason to actually watch it in full.

39 points by azhenley 11mo ago

Can't leave out Dr. Angela Collier: https://www.youtube.com/@acollierastro https://www.youtube.com/@acollierastro Hopefully author reads HN.

andrewflnr 10mo ago
She's very hit or miss in her quality IMO. Also, she's explicitly disclaimed the title of "science communicator", so she might not want to be on this list anyway. :) I kind of wish they hadn't included Veritasium either. He seems to have gone downhill.
- MPSimmons 10mo ago
  I don't know to what extent it has directly impacted his quality, but it appears that Derek sold Veritasium to a private equity firm https://www.electrify.video/post/electrify-completes-majority-investment-in-veritasium https://www.electrify.video/post/electrify-completes-majorit...
  - hermitcrab 10mo ago
    I can't imagine that is going to end well. Hopefully I am wrong about that.
    - andrewflnr 10mo ago
      You're already right about that.
- the__alchemist 10mo ago
  Her content is mostly meta, vs science comm/teaching. I am really torn on her: Great communicator, funny, accomplished. Seems confident/smug?/conservative for a scientist. Something about her word choice and style feels more politician than learner/researcher. Not sure how to phrase this.
  - andrewflnr 10mo ago
    That's an interesting perspective. I definitely don't get a "politician" tone from her. Her tone seems very casual to me. Conservative in the broad sense, maybe (definitely not politically).
    - the__alchemist 10mo ago
      Now that you point it out, I agree. Not sure the appropriate analogy.
  - vinceguidry 10mo ago
    I think this tone is definitely a deliberate creative choice, and is something I personally enjoy. I'm reminded of this line from Taylor Swift's new album: "did you girlboss too close to the sun?" It's borne out of the mountains of disrespect women scientists have to deal with, something she talks about towards the end of her video on Richard Feynman.

mat_b 10mo ago

No mention of PBS Space Time? That show is high quality.

smokel 10mo ago
Link for the lazy: https://www.youtube.com/c/pbsspacetime https://www.youtube.com/c/pbsspacetime
gnz11 10mo ago
PBS also did a recent live stream on the topic of science communication with some notable YouTubers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPKxk3s-8Yc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPKxk3s-8Yc

ThrowawayTestr 10mo ago

Some people might take issue with the Veritasium recommendation. I think he's great though.

Workaccount2 10mo ago
I was an avid viewer until he stepped in my area of expertise and leveraged technicalities, half-truths, and misrepresentation to really juice up the click-baityness and "wow!" factor. My interest in his videos plunged after that, and it seemed like he was re-alinging for consistent high views over straight hard factual education. Frankly I wish I could purge him from my feed at this point (youtube still recommends all his videos incessantly, despite me not watching one for at least a year now. On paper I am the ideal viewer though, so...)
- estimator7292 10mo ago
  On your homepage, click the three dots next to a video and click "do not recommend channel" It's one of the very few things that actually work
  - AuthAuth 10mo ago
    Do not recommend channel doesnt work. It only pauses recommendations for a few weeks. I've selected do not recommend on channels several times and they still sneak back in.
    - dkdcio 10mo ago
      I highly recommend turning off watch history on YouTube. it stops recommending you videos entirely; just watch what you subscribe to
      - AlexErrant 10mo ago
        I have a dedicated Chrome profile/account for watching videos that I don't want infecting my primary account's recommendations. Right click, "Open link as".

mmooss 10mo ago

Who has time for videos? I know lots watch them, but wow - reading is so much more efficient. I can skip ahead - and skim - or revisit; I can annotate; I can save, transcribe (copy/paste), I read so much faster than even accelerated video can play .... and all so much more easily. By sticking to reading, am I missing out on content? Edit: Not a criticism of watching video, I'm wondering if I'm missing substantial things. If I didn't read, for example, I'd miss a lot that doesn't exist in video or audio. Same thing with podcasts.

jonahrd 10mo ago
I'm a much more auditory/visual learner, so these videos work really great for me. I'm glad that reading works for you!
- mmooss 10mo ago
  I'm not criticizing, sorry; just trying to understand. I find video more compelling, generally. Obviously video has more ways to communicate - graphically, empirically, etc. It's not that reading works more effectively, but far more efficiently.
bane 10mo ago
Let me turn your question around, what are the benefits of communicating science via video such that it's a very popular medium that people use to learn about science?
- mmooss 10mo ago
  I think video is much more compelling to people in many ways (similar to TV vs reading a book), including to me. Part of that is seeing a person talking to you with all the cues of expression, voice, etc. There's a lower cognitive threshhold for engaging. Video also has communication modes that text/print lacks: dynamic graphics and empirical video (showing the thing itself happening), audio, speech and expression (as described above). With all that, I find it quite frustrating to see it consume so much time that could be spent reading and processing several things. How do others on HN - intellectually curious and serious, often busy - reconcile that? Though my question is really, am I missing things by not watching video - things I won't realistically get through print? I mean high-quality things - I want the equivelant of a paper, review paper, or book by a professional in the field.

zkmon 10mo ago

No 3B1B?

griffzhowl 10mo ago

For more in-depth physics, combining mathematical detail with excellent visualizations, the best channels I've found are Richard Behiel, Physics Explained, Dr Jorge Diaz For mathematics, I really appreciate the simpl but effective format of Richard Borcherds (Fields medalist) https://www.youtube.com/@richarde.borcherds7998 https://www.youtube.com/@richarde.borcherds7998

panopoly 10mo ago
> Richard Behiel Behiel is to 3Blue1Brown as a popular children's cartoon is to its late sequel series that aged up with its audience. Excellent work. I especially like his more recent trend of going line by line through famous papers. EPR and Bell's Inequality to date.
- griffzhowl 10mo ago
  Yeah, those are huge... I haven't got round to them yet. I liked the one on electromagnetism as a gauge theory

xvilka 10mo ago

List is incomplete without some other high quality channels already mentioned in other threads, but also Anton Petrov[1]'s channel, Sixty Symbols[2], Science Clic[3] and Artem Kirsanov[4]. Animalogic[5] certainly worth mentioning. And absolutely stunning Journey to Microcosmos[6]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@whatdamath https://www.youtube.com/@whatdamath [2] https://www.youtube.com/@sixtysymbols https://www.youtube.com/@sixtysymbols [3] https://www.youtube.com/@ScienceClicEN https://www.youtube.com/@ScienceClicEN [4] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR2uRTQ53V_egXKFflMMaaw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR2uRTQ53V_egXKFflMMaaw [5] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwg6_F2hDHYrqbNSGjmar4w https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwg6_F2hDHYrqbNSGjmar4w [6] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBbnbBWJtwsf0jLGUwX5Q3g https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBbnbBWJtwsf0jLGUwX5Q3g

ngruhn 10mo ago
ScienceClic has extremely good animations. And it's run by some guy in his early 20s. He knows the physics, he can create these amazing animations and he comes up with genuinely novel metaphors and perspectives.
andrewflnr 10mo ago
I want to hijack this comment to plug AlphaPhoenix (https://youtube.com/@alphaphoenixchannel https://youtube.com/@alphaphoenixchannel), who is responsible for by far the best explanations of electricity that I've encountered in any format. For instance, this one that clarifies what happens when you try to send electricity on an open circuit, and (IIRC this is the right one) what impedance mismatch is actually about: https://youtu.be/2AXv49dDQJw https://youtu.be/2AXv49dDQJw

squeral 10mo ago

I found it strange that StarTalk hadn't been mentioned yet. Neil deGrasse Tyson is my favourite science communicator.

thinkyfish 10mo ago
An who can forget Lord Nice!

predkambrij 10mo ago

I recommend "YouTube Summary with ChatGPT & Claude" extension, which makes it easy to copy transcription. Paste it in Deepseek or your favourite LLM with prompt "summarize in 1 paragraph" and then you can run TTS and you get idea about of the video in 10 seconds. You can ask followup questions, or to format it differently or get the reason to actually watch it in full.