Loading...You wouldn’t expect Youtube to be a place where you can learn, but if you’re familiar with the Youtube community, you know that statement is very far off the mark. Youtube has a plethora of great educational channels, ranging from physics to astronomy too, in this case, math.
This week’s Channel Showcase is Numberphile. Undoubtedly the best mathematics channel on the site, Numberphile is just one of the many educational channels run by Brady Haran. Unlike many other channels on Youtube, the creator isn’t actually the one talking in the video. Rather, in Numberphile’s videos, Brady Haran goes around and has distinguished mathematicians give their own mini-lectures (usually around 7-10 minutes long) on a certain tidbit of interesting mathematical facts, theories, applications and more. Not only are these stories and explanations from these mathematicians incredibly interesting, but you also learn a ton of math while you’re at it.
What makes Numberphile so great is that is does what every math textbook you ever had failed miserably at: showing how the math that you’re currently learning is used, and using that math, shows you interesting paradoxes, formulas and mathematical anomalies.
Here’s an example: in one video, Dr. James Grime, a frequent guest on Numberphile, explains the math behind the Enigma Machine, which recently gained popularity through the amazing movie The Imitation Game. (see the video above) In the video, Dr. Grime goes over exactly how the ingenious machine works; everything from the rotors to the decoding to exactly whey there is 158,962,555,217,826,360,000 possible combinations. He explains everything in an easy to understand and historically contextual way, and even went as far as to create another incredibly interesting about how, in amazing detail, Turing and the teams at Bletchley Park cracked it. (go to it HERE)
Another Numberphile video, also featured Dr. James Grime, talks about the different types of infinity. “What?”, you may be saying. How can there be different types of infinity. Well, that’s exactly what Dr. Grime explains in the video, but I can give you a hint and tell you it has to do with how you count the infinity, and what type of number you use. Altogether, a great video for any age, and certainly very interesting. (see the top of the page)
Overall, Numberphile is one of the most interesting and just altogether best mathematics channel on Youtube. With a video out fairly often, you will always learn something new, fascinating, and something you will then share with your friends and family. Great videos make a great channel, and great videos certainly isn’t something Numberphile is lacking.