From its first million-hit video of a Brazilian footballer receiving a new pair of boots back in 2005, YouTube has only grown in popularity and today is undoubtedly the biggest video platform on the internet, with over 1 billion hours of videos watched... each day! Academics and mathematicians have not missed this trend – it’s possible to find a maths lesson on almost any subject, from detailed proofs of the Reimann hypothesis to catchy tunes for remembering your times tables. It’s not all serious study though: there’s also plenty of content for learning maths to be enjoyed, just because it’s very interesting! Here are 3 of the most engaging ‘maths Youtubers’ that offer slightly different methods of teaching!
1 - TOM ROCKS MATHS
“Tom Rocks Maths” is an Oxford mathematician and self-confessed Rockstar. He rose to mathematical YouTube fame with his series ‘Equations stripped’ in which his persona ‘The Naked Mathematician’ was to be taken as literally as possible… He stripped back formula such as Euler’s Identity and ensured his audience stayed engaged by also removing his clothes!
Whilst his more recent videos have considerably less nudity, they are still extremely engaging! Tom is passionate about bringing maths to a wide audience and making sure everyone can enjoy it: check out some of his latest posts on such varied topics as ‘Ventilation and Covid-19’ and ‘Feynman’s Integral Trick with Bad Drawings’.
2 - NUMBERPHILE
One of the biggest maths YouTube channels out there with over 3 million subscribers, Numberphile describes itself as just ‘Videos about numbers – it’s that simple’. Their videos last about 15 minutes and can teach you a whole range of maths and science, from more classical subjects like the Fibonacci sequence to the more informal ‘The daddy of big numbers’ blog.
The channel is the creation of Australian-born filmmaker Adam Haran but often features other well-known YouTube mathematicians such as Tom Rocks Maths, as well as Ron Graham, Ben Sparks and Katie Steckles.
3 - 3BROWN1BLUE
As the reference to genetics in the name suggests, the channel is focused on mathematics as well as videos on other scientific topics, mostly in physics and computer science. Grant Sanderson aims for his videos to make learning more simple by changing perspectives and focusing on visualisations in teaching. Ironically, his most popular video is titled ‘The hardest video on the hardest test’ and over 8 million people have watched his solutions to some of the questions from the Putman competition.