It's really sad that PBS ended their sister series on math, Infinite Series[1]. Those videos were just as deep, informative, and accessible as PBS Spacetime. Some of my favorites are the one on the mathematical "hydra"[2] and the ones on voting systems [3][4]
>Is it possible that it doesn’t serve YTs interests to have a recommendation engine that works best for the end user?
100% absolutely it is similar to Goog's search
>I honestly think they just experiment with it a lot. The variety of videos that are recommended for me don’t seem to follow a pattern.
Possibly, but I'd posit that it's not a good system if the experiment is causing a lack of consistency. I'm sure there's a lot of people that would opt-in for a exeperimental reco system if just asked.
dang was not a thought in my mind when I replied, so if there's any inference to dang by you in my comment, it is solely within your reading of the comment.
however, out of curiosity, what in my comment makes you think that?
I watch an _absurd_ amount of PBS content on YouTube and other science channels. Not as many math channels but certainly a few. I am so angry this was never recommended to me earlier, and full of joy that my weekend is set!
It is astounding that so many people (me included) have this complain. I also watch numberphile, computerphile, 3B1B and the likes and yet I had never heard of the channel before.
I find the YouTube algorithm pretty useless. I have lots of subscriptions, but it only links narrowly to channels I’ve recently watched. It also keeps stupidly linking to particular vids I’ve already watched.
The analytic continuation of the Riemann zeta function that gets you to -1/12 is such nuanced mathematical trickery, I'm not even sure why so many people incessantly argue it one way or another.
A channel worth subscribing. Matt (and team?) manages successfully to walk the fine line between managing the complexity of the topics they discuss (which are sometimes extremely dense), making it consumable for the population that's interested in science and physics, but doesn't pursue it on a daily basis. At the same time, they don't fall for the trap of dumbing it down to the point where the audience develops misconceptions and starts believing in pseudo scientific claims.
There are some series they sometimes do, which are entertaining to follow. I also enjoy things like Journal club, where they pick a paper and deep dive into it. The audience also participates, in a way, where they pick the questions/comments from the previous video and answer them.
However, it's not all academic either. There are some running jokes etc, which keep the content entertaining, while being informative, a format that I see common in some of the best Youtube channels.
>making it consumable for the population that's interested in science and physics, but doesn't pursue it on a daily basis.
While I love the channel, it seems like they're more targeted to someone with a lot of physics education, more so than lay people. This is the only channel I've ever watched and genuinely felt dumb on a regular basis.
I think that's the key. Without a somewhat rigorous treatment, most interesting physics just doesn't work. The magic is that a well made resource is still consumable without quite understanding the complicated stuff. Then, if you come across something else later, maybe the commonalities make something click.
There's definitely a lot of material that, I have to accept that "I don't have the math for it"[0].
But Matt does a pretty good job of breaking things down conceptually, so that even though you don't know the specifics, the broader picture is at least vaguely understandable. Even if it means you need to watch previous episodes to get the gist of other discussed concepts.
[0] Harry Wilson, from John Scalzi's "Old Man's War"
Hah. I agree, but I'll add that his style is more like it's easy to follow for a while, then suddenly the car drives off a cliff and you need upper division college physics to understand.
I really love Anton. He has a way to ELI5 that's really effective and really genuine.
When we first started the show we were doing way dumber more youtube-y content (largely due to the interests of the producers, not PBS — look up the Majora's mask or farting in space episode). We got a ton of initial feedback early on that people wanted more actual science stuff, and it seemed like there was effectively no upper bound for what people would "tolerate" in terms of actual science vs. IFLS-core content. I think people honestly just like the challenge of understanding the show.
As someone with zero formal education in physics, I’ve always felt like they do a pretty good job. While there might be some parts that I have to dig into to understand or just accept going over my head, for the most part I come away from each video feeling like I understand both what they were talking about and what parts of what they were talking about were just surface level explanations.
I've watched random videos from it until I decided to watch them all chronologically. I must say, they do build on previous episodes, even more heavily as time goes on
Yeup, I took several 100 level physics in college, 400 level physical chemistry which involved quantum mechanics and got good grades on them. I can't understand the show.
Yes! If you watch more than 5 physics docs that run on TV, you quickly get tired of hearing "Black holes are so massive that not even light can escape it!".
This channel covers the same subjects of physics and space, but does so with some incredible insight that I've seen no other channels dig into, and thoughtful animated diagrams that really help in comprehending the subject.
These are closer like lectures, but I enjoy them because they go into the histories of some of these experiments; and what the prevailing wisdom was around the time the experiments were performed:
I love Science Asylum! It has the tone and vibe of a children's pop-sci "educational" resource, with incongruously rigorous content. The tensor video is very good, but I always laugh while watching because even with an admirable attempt to dumb it down it's so clear that there's a lot of iceberg beneath the surface. Reminds me of my favorite undergrad math profs, it's clear they're simultaneously doing their best to dumb the content down for us neophytes and not doing nearly enough.
One of the best and most underrated science channels on YouTube. I hope he gets his deserved rise in popularity, though his channel is growing faster now.
PBS Digital Studios has produced some real gems - I really liked PBS Idea Channel, a content which discussed philosophical concepts related to media and technology.
Spacetime is nice because they / Matt often acknowledge uncertainty (indeed, gaps being found or closed in current understanding are probably one of the most common themes of the show), unlike many others which tend to present theories as facts (e.g. kurzgesagt often does this). Likewise, they don't shy away from making relatively complex explanations instead of leaning all to heavily into bogus analogies. They made a well-regarded by physicists (as far as I can tell) series on relativity, for example.
I think acknowledging uncertainty is one of the most important jobs of science communicators. It’s important that they say, “…but we really don’t know for sure” and emphasize when something is theoretical, a best guess, or a rough model. I think Matt and team do this very well.
Unfortunately, there are people that take that "we really don't know for sure" comment as a negative as "proof" of whatever thing they are pushing instead. The internet is full of them.
I still think it's important that scientists be factual about the uncertainty, though. The alternative whacko theories also have uncertainty, so if we hold ourselves to that standard, we can also rationally hold them to their even greater degrees of uncertainty. When we try to pretend that a current theory is 100% certain and factual just to win an argument with idiots, it invites obvious and IMHO reasonable criticism of all of science.
Science is not a set of facts caved in stone. Science is a process; a way of thinking critically and exploring the boundaries of reality in a way that makes a best effort at getting closer and closer to the boundaries of the knowable in a rational and reasonably-objective way. It often makes missteps and corrections along the way, and we can acknowledge that openly while also contrasting it to non-science junk that isn't even on the right track.
I've come to somewhat randomly expose a few of my major biases and preconceptions in the last couple months, which has been very interesting. This video hits the nail on the head for science communication (the 2nd half is the meta portion, the 1st half addresses a specific issue): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzpIsjgapAk
I took a philosophy class one where several of the participants were getting upset that there weren’t just facts to learn because up to that point they had not been exposed to any kind of uncertainty. These were mostly students in the sciences too.
Kurzgesagt has acknowledged this was a problem with some of their earlier videos, but they're trying to do better with presenting any uncertainty around the topics they cover from now on.
I believe they did it on this video called "Can You Trust Kurzgesagt?". They also removed a few of their older videos at the time because they had this exact issue of presenting as fact some things that were not at all certain.
> because they / Matt often acknowledge uncertainty
Great pun! :D
They also will present the strengths and weaknesses of various 'competing' theories. For ones that have been shown to be incorrect, they still present them accurately and well and explain how those theories led to our current, more correct understanding. For ones that are still being considered they will tell you evidence for and against.
I think this show is what made me realize that physics isn't one unified whole, but rather a lot of different models that are all somehow wrong (but still better than what they were built on!), and that there's conflicting evidence for each of them.
The way a lot of so-called science channels make the mistake of presenting theories as facts is why I've dropped most of them. Spacetime has been the only show I've never had that complaint with. Kurzegesagt was an especially big offender in that manner.
PBS SpaceTime has been running for quite some time already. Beyond the obvious space/time and physics aspect, it's also a good example of a fact-based show that shows scientific method and critical thinking in action, without unnecessary drama or exaggerated sensationalist style; it strikes a perfect balance between science and narrative, serious and not-so-serious, in-depth and manageable chunk size. The graphics help to understand some of the material for us non-physicists or math geniuses, and Matt O'Dowd calm voice and wit create an environment suitable both for deep learning and deep relaxation, occasionally battling insomnia.
I've never seen it on my local PBS station. Is it actually aired anywhere?
It is streamable on the PBS website, and via the PBS apps on iOS, Android, Roku, Samsung TVs, Amazon Fire TV and others, but YouTube is still better.
As far as I've seen the PBS streams just include the episode itself, compared to the YouTube version which included the episode itself plus replies to points raised in the comments to the previous episode or two.
Also the PBS apps on some of those devices are buggy or have serious interface annoyances.
If you watch on the web on a platform where your browser can run an ad blocker, YouTube beats the PBS website because of the comment replies.
If you watch on the YouTube apps on a device such as a FireTV where you cannot block ads, I'd say YouTube still beats using the PBS on the device. The PBS apps often have 30 to 60 second promos for other PBS series. These aren't as annoying as YouTube ads, but can get pretty annoying after a while because there is a much more limited set. The Space Time episodes are short enough that most of the time you will only get YouTube ads up front, and those tend to be shorter than the promos in the PBS app, and often let you skip after 5 seconds.
Even if the ads in the YouTube ad are more annoying than the promos in the PBS app, I think for most people they won't be more annoying enough to counter the YouTube app being less buggy and having a better interface and including the comment reply segments.
Hmm, have rarely found youtube comments to be worthwhile, and on average terrible. However use of yt-dl or similar might be the best of both worlds. Newpipe can make that easier.
Just to be clear I'm not saying that an advantage of watching on YouTube is that you can read the YouTube comments.
The Space Time staff read the YouTube comments, pick a few of the best, and then at the end of a later video (usually the next one or the one after that) they present those comments and respond. These comment responses often answer questions that I had when watching the earlier episode.
The videos on the PBS website or in the PBS apps just have the episode.
I have enjoyed them for years, I can recommend their merch and also give a slightly embarassing advice for insomniacs.
If you have insomnia, find a subject that you are genuinely interested in (but not too much) and watch videos on it while in bed. After a while, your brain slowly drifts off. After even more awhile, you learn to do this without a video.
PBS Spacetime, Sabine Hossenfelder, Isaac Arthur cured my insomnia, for which I am infinitely grateful.
I was wondering if I was the only one and glad to find out I’m not. I was a bit embarrassed because I absolutely love the videos (and have done so for years) but if I watch them in bed they put me to sleep in < 10 minutes.
Great quality and content. I recommend this channel for anyone interested in space and physics in general.
Doesn't work for me since I am interested in physics. Can recommend Elden Ring lore channels, for very smooth tone of voice and little variations, really put me to sleep.
I got the best stuff ever for you: In depth chess videos. I once had bought a chess game (not sure if it was the chess master series) and it contained a whole bunch of annotated games by a GM.
It was interesting but also tired my brain so quickly, that it was the best sleep tool ever.
While we're all advocating for our favorite science related YT channels, let me add a plug for "Physics Girl" (aka Dianna Cowern). Note that her channel isn't so much cosmology and deep theoretical stuff, but has a lot of focus on exploring "real world" aspects of science, including lots of field trips to see neat places and things, but explored from a physics perspective.
Another great channel is Dr Becky (Becky Smethurst). Dr. Becky is an astrophysicist, so her channel is more specifically oriented towards astrophysics topics.
I love watching SpaceTime on youtube! If you watch it, it will give you a surprisingly deep understanding of the state of the art on physics, but is the kind of show that if you don't have a massive background in physics, you either need to be extremely focused to understand it, or blazed out of your mind.
If you enjoy Matt @ Spacetime, Sabine Hossenfelder, and Kurzgesagt, and are into astrophysics, I would highly recommend Anton Petrov’s YouTube channel:
I started off really liking Kurzgesagt but got tired with how often they started with conclusions and then constructed narratives to justify it, rather than starting with observations. It's just the wrong way to think and present things.
Physics degrees were the gateway into data science before there was such a thing as a data science degree. So it's possible that he works as a data scientist but was trained as a physicist.
PBS SpaceTime is great. Another physics video series on Youtube that is also excellent (and maybe even a little better) are the videos by Don Lincoln of Fermilab. They don't break his videos out into his own channel, but he's a lot of the Fermilab content:
https://www.youtube.com/user/fermilab
PBS Eons [1] (history of earth related science) and and Be Smart [2] (general science topics) are also pretty good. Both are definitely more targeted for lay people than SpaceTime however.
I'm just here to shill Isaac Arthur's Youtube channel[1]
Few people try to take our progress as a species to the next evolutionary step while making the content accessible.
If you want to know how we as a species will reverse entropy and shrink into the fabric of space-time as the universe reaches thermodynamic conformity, this guy has ya covered.
I rarely comment but PBS Spacetime is an amazing channel and Matt a great host. Even though they don't (hell, I don't) understand it all, I love watching it with my kids and see their eyes get huge when they see the excellent graphics and concepts.
One of my favorite channels on YT. There are many channels who try to explain similar topics, but PBS Spacetime is among the top 3 in how it engages the viewer and keeps them interested while explaining in (relatively (no pun intended)) simple terms.
SpaceTime is an amazing channel, if you enjoy the in depth videos then I'd also highly recommend ScienceClic (no K at the end) and History of the Universe, both channels similarly go in deep on a lot of physics, and have really great visuals.
Matt and his team are doing such a great job.The visuals are great and the music is alway on point! Also, when I'm stressed out, I can watch an episode and my mind calms down again. Thank you guys!
One of my absolute favourite YouTube channels of all time. Very well presented, truly fascinating topics, and explained in a way even a pleb like me can understand (at least enough to know that I don’t understand shit about the universe, but am still endlessly fascinated by it all).
A similar channel I've found recently that tackles the same kind of content is ScienceClic [1]. The visualizations are some of the best and most intuitive I've yet seen.
I was a Patreon supporter for about 2 years, at the 2nd biggest pledge level of $250/month. I only stopped because of my own, um, cash flow issues... :)
I'm saying this not to show off or signal my virtue. I'm saying it to let everyone know it's a fantastic channel that is well worth your time and/or support. They have never ventured into click-bait land, nor do I think they ever will.
If you like science, and physics specifically, give 'em a look.
I became obsessed with PBS space time over the pandemic. I love the depth of content that Matt goes into. It’s clearly a ton of work and I pays off. I’m definitely super interested in Astrophysics now.
I like them, Matt doesn't like to make everything sound like a mystery, but instead explain it to the point and not dumb it down too much. I also like watching Sabine Hossenfelder for physics topics.
Weird to see this on HN! I'm late to the party but was browsing older HN posts and just saw it — I was the director of the first "season" of this show (with Gabe) and directed about ~10 episodes with Matt before leaving the production company that makes it. Happy to answer any questions about the show/how it happened/etc. I'll also browse comments here to see if I can answer anything.
If nothing else to add a differing voice, I cannot stand PBS SpaceTime. I will be completely honest and say that it's probably more due to my lack of understanding than fault of theirs. But, that said, I'm perfectly fine following other science "bloggers". I enjoy them, and I learn from them. PBS however bugs me to no end, because I rarely feel I've understood it, or even learned anything. I'm likely in the minority.
For those of us of a certain age, does anyone else recall a series on PBS from the early 90s (maybe earlier) on physics and calculus? I remember whatching these programs well before I took those classes so that I didn't understand all of it, but when I finally got to them in school, the concepts in the videos made much more sense and the videos helped make sense of some of the textbook learning too.
Oh wow, I had forgotten about that show. I had no idea that the theme was done by part of Kraftwerk.
Unfortunately, this is not the same show as I was originally thinking. The one I was thinking was more like a video class on physics subjects. More like teacher suplemental type stuff. It was the first example of video based teacher reinforcement stuff that clicked with me, and helped me actually like the subject matter.
This might have been it. There are way more episodes than I was familiar. If it's not it, then all I've been reminded today is how much amazing content has been provided by PBS.
This is the only Youtube channel where I watched __all videos__. In fact I watched many more than once! Ever since Gabe left and Matt took over the quality also increased tremendously. I've learned more about how the universe works from this source than any other source combined. this channel is a must for everybody interested in the topic!
The best thing about SpaceTime is the balance of how much content is slightly out of reach for an average viewer. Pushing that boundary is an important thing to do with educational content especially in a world where so many things are dumbed down.
I like it because they go one step further than other science outreach channels, and they don’t renounce on accuracy while simplifying obviously complex physics topics.
hard disagree. earlier content had more surface area to cover - as they get into more specific content in these latter years, of course topic delivery will get leaner
The only way I can pay on the net, is by using a wallet code (like with amazon). Namely, I need a monetary account I can fuel with wallet codes I will buy at my local monetary outlet. Then upon payment at pbs, I would log to this "wallet code" service where I would validate (one time code receive via email, sms, etc) that payment.
All that must be possible with noscript/basic (x)html browsers.
It's really sad that PBS ended their sister series on math, Infinite Series[1]. Those videos were just as deep, informative, and accessible as PBS Spacetime. Some of my favorites are the one on the mathematical "hydra"[2] and the ones on voting systems [3][4]
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs4aHmggTfFrpkPcWSaBN9g
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWwUpEY4c8o
[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoAnYQZrNrQ
[4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhVR7gFMKNg
I had never even heard of this, and I've watched dozens and dozens of episodes of Spacetime!
I'm shocked YouTube didn't steer me to this sister channel. Thank you!
Are you suggesting that the YT recommendation algorithm is some how flawed? I hope you're doing that on a throwaway account ;P
Is it possible that it doesn’t serve YTs interests to have a recommendation engine that works best for the end user?
I honestly think they just experiment with it a lot. The variety of videos that are recommended for me don’t seem to follow a pattern.
Maybe they know my brain better than I do.
>Is it possible that it doesn’t serve YTs interests to have a recommendation engine that works best for the end user?
100% absolutely it is similar to Goog's search
>I honestly think they just experiment with it a lot. The variety of videos that are recommended for me don’t seem to follow a pattern.
Possibly, but I'd posit that it's not a good system if the experiment is causing a lack of consistency. I'm sure there's a lot of people that would opt-in for a exeperimental reco system if just asked.
> Maybe they know my brain better than I do.
Now you're just being silly.
Is this a jab at dang?
dang was not a thought in my mind when I replied, so if there's any inference to dang by you in my comment, it is solely within your reading of the comment.
however, out of curiosity, what in my comment makes you think that?
You were criticising the moderation of this site
I see. No, that was more so of the swarming vs staff management, but I can see how it wasn't so out of left field now.
They said YT, not YC.
This makes even more sense at the confusion.
It's not recommended because it hasn't been updated in years.. the algorithm promotes channels with updated content higher
I watch an _absurd_ amount of PBS content on YouTube and other science channels. Not as many math channels but certainly a few. I am so angry this was never recommended to me earlier, and full of joy that my weekend is set!
It is astounding that so many people (me included) have this complain. I also watch numberphile, computerphile, 3B1B and the likes and yet I had never heard of the channel before.
Same for me.
I find the YouTube algorithm pretty useless. I have lots of subscriptions, but it only links narrowly to channels I’ve recently watched. It also keeps stupidly linking to particular vids I’ve already watched.
It was good with Kelsey, but after she had to leave and was replaced, it somehow became really bad.
I'll second that, it died only because the new host couldn't fill her shoes. Conversely Matt on SpaceTime has done a great job taking over from Gabe.
Numberphile fills the void.
They did some great vids with Cliff Stoll, including this one about his Klein Bottles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU
Gets too mainstream though.
Try Mathologer instead
3blue1brown is also excellent
Numberphile lost me with their doubling down on their “sum of natural numbers is -1/12” video.
The analytic continuation of the Riemann zeta function that gets you to -1/12 is such nuanced mathematical trickery, I'm not even sure why so many people incessantly argue it one way or another.
Me to, however I forgave them after a great response video by Mathologer.
A channel worth subscribing. Matt (and team?) manages successfully to walk the fine line between managing the complexity of the topics they discuss (which are sometimes extremely dense), making it consumable for the population that's interested in science and physics, but doesn't pursue it on a daily basis. At the same time, they don't fall for the trap of dumbing it down to the point where the audience develops misconceptions and starts believing in pseudo scientific claims.
There are some series they sometimes do, which are entertaining to follow. I also enjoy things like Journal club, where they pick a paper and deep dive into it. The audience also participates, in a way, where they pick the questions/comments from the previous video and answer them.
However, it's not all academic either. There are some running jokes etc, which keep the content entertaining, while being informative, a format that I see common in some of the best Youtube channels.
>making it consumable for the population that's interested in science and physics, but doesn't pursue it on a daily basis.
While I love the channel, it seems like they're more targeted to someone with a lot of physics education, more so than lay people. This is the only channel I've ever watched and genuinely felt dumb on a regular basis.
I think that's the key. Without a somewhat rigorous treatment, most interesting physics just doesn't work. The magic is that a well made resource is still consumable without quite understanding the complicated stuff. Then, if you come across something else later, maybe the commonalities make something click.
There's definitely a lot of material that, I have to accept that "I don't have the math for it"[0].
But Matt does a pretty good job of breaking things down conceptually, so that even though you don't know the specifics, the broader picture is at least vaguely understandable. Even if it means you need to watch previous episodes to get the gist of other discussed concepts.
[0] Harry Wilson, from John Scalzi's "Old Man's War"
Hah. I agree, but I'll add that his style is more like it's easy to follow for a while, then suddenly the car drives off a cliff and you need upper division college physics to understand.
I really love Anton. He has a way to ELI5 that's really effective and really genuine.
Hello wonderful person. Are you referring to Anton Petrov? I also really enjoy his channel.
There's no other Anton, wonderful person!
When we first started the show we were doing way dumber more youtube-y content (largely due to the interests of the producers, not PBS — look up the Majora's mask or farting in space episode). We got a ton of initial feedback early on that people wanted more actual science stuff, and it seemed like there was effectively no upper bound for what people would "tolerate" in terms of actual science vs. IFLS-core content. I think people honestly just like the challenge of understanding the show.
As someone with zero formal education in physics, I’ve always felt like they do a pretty good job. While there might be some parts that I have to dig into to understand or just accept going over my head, for the most part I come away from each video feeling like I understand both what they were talking about and what parts of what they were talking about were just surface level explanations.
I've watched random videos from it until I decided to watch them all chronologically. I must say, they do build on previous episodes, even more heavily as time goes on
Yeup, I took several 100 level physics in college, 400 level physical chemistry which involved quantum mechanics and got good grades on them. I can't understand the show.
Yeah definitely true.
I have an undergraduate degree in physics and sometimes I don’t understand the things they are talking about.
I still find it interesting and valuable though.
Im a total layperson and i can still understand everything, although i sometimes have to watch a video multiple times.
Same here, I stopped watching because I tend to get lost after a while.
History Of The Universe is more consumable at my level
Yes! If you watch more than 5 physics docs that run on TV, you quickly get tired of hearing "Black holes are so massive that not even light can escape it!".
If you like PBS Space Time, you'll likely also enjoy "Science Asylum":
https://www.youtube.com/c/Scienceasylum
This channel covers the same subjects of physics and space, but does so with some incredible insight that I've seen no other channels dig into, and thoughtful animated diagrams that really help in comprehending the subject.
Here are some great episodes:
"What is Quantum Spin?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB1EPGmpzyg
"Quantum Superposition, Explained Without Woo Woo": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUipVyVOm-Y
"Capacitors Are Gaps! How Does That Work?!": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYRx6Zub3cA
Also Sabine Hossenfelder. She sometimes does non-physics topics but it's mostly physics
https://www.youtube.com/c/SabineHossenfelder/videos
I’ll throw in ScienceClic as another great channel in the same vein.
https://m.youtube.com/c/ScienceClicEN
Science Asylum is great, but I dislike the 90s educational show presentation format. An absolute gem I've stumbled across is ScienceClic:
https://www.youtube.com/c/ScienceClicEN
They have amazing presentations on Relativity, my favorite being:
"A new way to visualize General Relativity" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrwgIjBUYVc
"Hawking Radiation" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isezfMo8kW
Another, while heavier and less accessible channel is Physics Explained:
https://www.youtube.com/c/PhysicsExplainedVideos
These are closer like lectures, but I enjoy them because they go into the histories of some of these experiments; and what the prevailing wisdom was around the time the experiments were performed:
"What is the Ultraviolet Catastrophe?" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCfPQLVzus4
As far as lecture-y YouTube series go, Sean Carrol put together "the biggest ideas in the universe" in early covid: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrxfgDEc2NxZJcWcrxH3j...
I love Science Asylum! It has the tone and vibe of a children's pop-sci "educational" resource, with incongruously rigorous content. The tensor video is very good, but I always laugh while watching because even with an admirable attempt to dumb it down it's so clear that there's a lot of iceberg beneath the surface. Reminds me of my favorite undergrad math profs, it's clear they're simultaneously doing their best to dumb the content down for us neophytes and not doing nearly enough.
One of the best and most underrated science channels on YouTube. I hope he gets his deserved rise in popularity, though his channel is growing faster now.
Another cool channel in the same vein is SciShow: https://www.youtube.com/c/SciShow
PBS Digital Studios has produced some real gems - I really liked PBS Idea Channel, a content which discussed philosophical concepts related to media and technology.
PBS eons is my favorite
I love SpaceTime, thanks for the suggestion. As a non-physicist - I realized the details are a bit too much and I care more about the higher level.
Spacetime is nice because they / Matt often acknowledge uncertainty (indeed, gaps being found or closed in current understanding are probably one of the most common themes of the show), unlike many others which tend to present theories as facts (e.g. kurzgesagt often does this). Likewise, they don't shy away from making relatively complex explanations instead of leaning all to heavily into bogus analogies. They made a well-regarded by physicists (as far as I can tell) series on relativity, for example.
I think acknowledging uncertainty is one of the most important jobs of science communicators. It’s important that they say, “…but we really don’t know for sure” and emphasize when something is theoretical, a best guess, or a rough model. I think Matt and team do this very well.
Unfortunately, there are people that take that "we really don't know for sure" comment as a negative as "proof" of whatever thing they are pushing instead. The internet is full of them.
I still think it's important that scientists be factual about the uncertainty, though. The alternative whacko theories also have uncertainty, so if we hold ourselves to that standard, we can also rationally hold them to their even greater degrees of uncertainty. When we try to pretend that a current theory is 100% certain and factual just to win an argument with idiots, it invites obvious and IMHO reasonable criticism of all of science.
Science is not a set of facts caved in stone. Science is a process; a way of thinking critically and exploring the boundaries of reality in a way that makes a best effort at getting closer and closer to the boundaries of the knowable in a rational and reasonably-objective way. It often makes missteps and corrections along the way, and we can acknowledge that openly while also contrasting it to non-science junk that isn't even on the right track.
I've come to somewhat randomly expose a few of my major biases and preconceptions in the last couple months, which has been very interesting. This video hits the nail on the head for science communication (the 2nd half is the meta portion, the 1st half addresses a specific issue): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzpIsjgapAk
I took a philosophy class one where several of the participants were getting upset that there weren’t just facts to learn because up to that point they had not been exposed to any kind of uncertainty. These were mostly students in the sciences too.
Kurzgesagt has acknowledged this was a problem with some of their earlier videos, but they're trying to do better with presenting any uncertainty around the topics they cover from now on.
I would agree, they have done a much better job presenting the uncertainty.
Do you remember where they did this / have a link? I'm not "citation needed"-ing you, I'm just curious when they said this.
I believe they did it on this video called "Can You Trust Kurzgesagt?". They also removed a few of their older videos at the time because they had this exact issue of presenting as fact some things that were not at all certain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtUAAXe_0VI
> because they / Matt often acknowledge uncertainty
Great pun! :D
They also will present the strengths and weaknesses of various 'competing' theories. For ones that have been shown to be incorrect, they still present them accurately and well and explain how those theories led to our current, more correct understanding. For ones that are still being considered they will tell you evidence for and against.
I think this show is what made me realize that physics isn't one unified whole, but rather a lot of different models that are all somehow wrong (but still better than what they were built on!), and that there's conflicting evidence for each of them.
The way a lot of so-called science channels make the mistake of presenting theories as facts is why I've dropped most of them. Spacetime has been the only show I've never had that complaint with. Kurzegesagt was an especially big offender in that manner.
PBS SpaceTime has been running for quite some time already. Beyond the obvious space/time and physics aspect, it's also a good example of a fact-based show that shows scientific method and critical thinking in action, without unnecessary drama or exaggerated sensationalist style; it strikes a perfect balance between science and narrative, serious and not-so-serious, in-depth and manageable chunk size. The graphics help to understand some of the material for us non-physicists or math geniuses, and Matt O'Dowd calm voice and wit create an environment suitable both for deep learning and deep relaxation, occasionally battling insomnia.
This is one of the gems of Youtube for sure.
Why not watch on PBS, rather than subjected to the drawbacks of youtube?
I've never seen it on my local PBS station. Is it actually aired anywhere?
It is streamable on the PBS website, and via the PBS apps on iOS, Android, Roku, Samsung TVs, Amazon Fire TV and others, but YouTube is still better.
As far as I've seen the PBS streams just include the episode itself, compared to the YouTube version which included the episode itself plus replies to points raised in the comments to the previous episode or two.
Also the PBS apps on some of those devices are buggy or have serious interface annoyances.
If you watch on the web on a platform where your browser can run an ad blocker, YouTube beats the PBS website because of the comment replies.
If you watch on the YouTube apps on a device such as a FireTV where you cannot block ads, I'd say YouTube still beats using the PBS on the device. The PBS apps often have 30 to 60 second promos for other PBS series. These aren't as annoying as YouTube ads, but can get pretty annoying after a while because there is a much more limited set. The Space Time episodes are short enough that most of the time you will only get YouTube ads up front, and those tend to be shorter than the promos in the PBS app, and often let you skip after 5 seconds.
Even if the ads in the YouTube ad are more annoying than the promos in the PBS app, I think for most people they won't be more annoying enough to counter the YouTube app being less buggy and having a better interface and including the comment reply segments.
Hmm, have rarely found youtube comments to be worthwhile, and on average terrible. However use of yt-dl or similar might be the best of both worlds. Newpipe can make that easier.
Just to be clear I'm not saying that an advantage of watching on YouTube is that you can read the YouTube comments.
The Space Time staff read the YouTube comments, pick a few of the best, and then at the end of a later video (usually the next one or the one after that) they present those comments and respond. These comment responses often answer questions that I had when watching the earlier episode.
The videos on the PBS website or in the PBS apps just have the episode.
MPV or IINA are good for streaming YouTube videos too.
I have enjoyed them for years, I can recommend their merch and also give a slightly embarassing advice for insomniacs.
If you have insomnia, find a subject that you are genuinely interested in (but not too much) and watch videos on it while in bed. After a while, your brain slowly drifts off. After even more awhile, you learn to do this without a video.
PBS Spacetime, Sabine Hossenfelder, Isaac Arthur cured my insomnia, for which I am infinitely grateful.
I was wondering if I was the only one and glad to find out I’m not. I was a bit embarrassed because I absolutely love the videos (and have done so for years) but if I watch them in bed they put me to sleep in < 10 minutes.
Great quality and content. I recommend this channel for anyone interested in space and physics in general.
Doesn't work for me since I am interested in physics. Can recommend Elden Ring lore channels, for very smooth tone of voice and little variations, really put me to sleep.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYDs_Inzkz4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXN1oi4BmxQ
Used to listen to AoE2 game commentary to fall asleep.
Ironically the guy running the channel used to joke about how many people used his videos to fall asleep to.
problem with t90 is he sometimes gets too excited and wakes you up with his outbursts
I'm not an insomniac but as a layman, the drifting certainly happened. Found their content a little too deep for my general curiosity.
Another YouTube channel I watch on this type of stuff is SEA [1], and the channel even has a curated list of their videos to help sleeping [2].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/c/SEAmedia
[2] Space Sleep playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkoaIad9k4NIlsG6g-alm...
I got the best stuff ever for you: In depth chess videos. I once had bought a chess game (not sure if it was the chess master series) and it contained a whole bunch of annotated games by a GM.
It was interesting but also tired my brain so quickly, that it was the best sleep tool ever.
While we're all advocating for our favorite science related YT channels, let me add a plug for "Physics Girl" (aka Dianna Cowern). Note that her channel isn't so much cosmology and deep theoretical stuff, but has a lot of focus on exploring "real world" aspects of science, including lots of field trips to see neat places and things, but explored from a physics perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/c/physicsgirl
Another great channel is Dr Becky (Becky Smethurst). Dr. Becky is an astrophysicist, so her channel is more specifically oriented towards astrophysics topics.
https://www.youtube.com/c/DrBecky
Dr. Becky is stellar for astrophysics.
I love watching SpaceTime on youtube! If you watch it, it will give you a surprisingly deep understanding of the state of the art on physics, but is the kind of show that if you don't have a massive background in physics, you either need to be extremely focused to understand it, or blazed out of your mind.
repeat viewings also help.
If you enjoy Matt @ Spacetime, Sabine Hossenfelder, and Kurzgesagt, and are into astrophysics, I would highly recommend Anton Petrov’s YouTube channel:
https://m.youtube.com/c/whatdamath
I started off really liking Kurzgesagt but got tired with how often they started with conclusions and then constructed narratives to justify it, rather than starting with observations. It's just the wrong way to think and present things.
I prefer this "main idea up front" presentation. In Slack messages, emails, articles, etc. Everything but drama/fiction.
Kurzgesagt seemed out of character for his rant video on dairy, it was odd.
To pile on with the recommendations, I really enjoy "Launch Pad Astronomy".
https://www.youtube.com/c/ChristianReady
Second this. For someone enjoying long formats his compilations are also great[0].
[0]https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=anton+petrov+comp...
I'd also recommend Sean Carroll. His "Biggest Ideas in the Universe" series is really great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI09kat_GeI&list=PLrxfgDEc2N...
I'd also recommend his podcast, Mindscape.
+1 Sabine Hossenfelder. I find her way of explaining a bit more towards my tastes.
Best contextualized recommendation of the morning. TY.
Yep, he's awesome. I am kinda surprised that he himself seems to be a data scientist? I'd have suspected he'd be a phycisist.
Physics degrees were the gateway into data science before there was such a thing as a data science degree. So it's possible that he works as a data scientist but was trained as a physicist.
Thanks, will give it a go
PBS Space Time is great, and it always amazes me that we're able to watch such high quality content for free.
If you're into paleontology, PBS Eons is equally interesting and has a similarly high production quality: https://www.youtube.com/c/eons
PBS SpaceTime is great. Another physics video series on Youtube that is also excellent (and maybe even a little better) are the videos by Don Lincoln of Fermilab. They don't break his videos out into his own channel, but he's a lot of the Fermilab content: https://www.youtube.com/user/fermilab
PBS Eons [1] (history of earth related science) and and Be Smart [2] (general science topics) are also pretty good. Both are definitely more targeted for lay people than SpaceTime however.
[1] https://youtube.com/c/eons
[2] https://youtube.com/c/itsokaytobesmart
I'm just here to shill Isaac Arthur's Youtube channel[1]
Few people try to take our progress as a species to the next evolutionary step while making the content accessible.
If you want to know how we as a species will reverse entropy and shrink into the fabric of space-time as the universe reaches thermodynamic conformity, this guy has ya covered.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g
Isaac is pretty amazing. His topic selection is like a peek into my brain.
I wish he had a team of content producers working with him, rather than having to do so much re-using stock footage.
I rarely comment but PBS Spacetime is an amazing channel and Matt a great host. Even though they don't (hell, I don't) understand it all, I love watching it with my kids and see their eyes get huge when they see the excellent graphics and concepts.
One of my favorite channels on YT. There are many channels who try to explain similar topics, but PBS Spacetime is among the top 3 in how it engages the viewer and keeps them interested while explaining in (relatively (no pun intended)) simple terms.
SpaceTime is an amazing channel, if you enjoy the in depth videos then I'd also highly recommend ScienceClic (no K at the end) and History of the Universe, both channels similarly go in deep on a lot of physics, and have really great visuals.
Matt and his team are doing such a great job.The visuals are great and the music is alway on point! Also, when I'm stressed out, I can watch an episode and my mind calms down again. Thank you guys!
The visual effects team that does the cgi for Spacetime is amazing, and being a fellow brazilian those guys make me really proud.
One of my absolute favourite YouTube channels of all time. Very well presented, truly fascinating topics, and explained in a way even a pleb like me can understand (at least enough to know that I don’t understand shit about the universe, but am still endlessly fascinated by it all).
PBS Digital Studios[0] has a couple of cool deep series like this. See also Eons[1].
[0] https://www.pbs.org/franchise/digital-studios/
[1] https://www.pbs.org/show/eons/
A similar channel I've found recently that tackles the same kind of content is ScienceClic [1]. The visualizations are some of the best and most intuitive I've yet seen.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/c/ScienceClicEN/videos
I never miss a week. It's great. I wish they would sell a Penrose diagram shirt.
this! also, i used to basically only wear spacetime tshirts for a couple of summers but their quality went down quite a bit
The German equivalent is Alpha Centauri by Prof. Dr. Harald Lesch.
He created over 200 of those 15 min clips between 1998-2007.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF86BBCC6E99AF968
Space Night is another classic that should be mentioned in this context.
https://www.ardmediathek.de/sendung/space-night/Y3JpZDovL2Jy...
I was a Patreon supporter for about 2 years, at the 2nd biggest pledge level of $250/month. I only stopped because of my own, um, cash flow issues... :)
I'm saying this not to show off or signal my virtue. I'm saying it to let everyone know it's a fantastic channel that is well worth your time and/or support. They have never ventured into click-bait land, nor do I think they ever will.
If you like science, and physics specifically, give 'em a look.
I became obsessed with PBS space time over the pandemic. I love the depth of content that Matt goes into. It’s clearly a ton of work and I pays off. I’m definitely super interested in Astrophysics now.
I like them, Matt doesn't like to make everything sound like a mystery, but instead explain it to the point and not dumb it down too much. I also like watching Sabine Hossenfelder for physics topics.
For physics and science history, https://www.youtube.com/c/KathyLovesPhysicsHistory
Many of Kathy's videos, especially those on quantum physics and Einstein, I've watched a few times.
Here's a good one, "Joseph Fraunhofer Biography: The Father of Modern Astronomy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0cjG1UdqKo
Somewhat related, Kurzgesagt is amazing.
Much agreed, and you may also enjoy Exurb1a
Weird to see this on HN! I'm late to the party but was browsing older HN posts and just saw it — I was the director of the first "season" of this show (with Gabe) and directed about ~10 episodes with Matt before leaving the production company that makes it. Happy to answer any questions about the show/how it happened/etc. I'll also browse comments here to see if I can answer anything.
PBS SpaceTime is easily one of my favorite channels on any platform.
If nothing else to add a differing voice, I cannot stand PBS SpaceTime. I will be completely honest and say that it's probably more due to my lack of understanding than fault of theirs. But, that said, I'm perfectly fine following other science "bloggers". I enjoy them, and I learn from them. PBS however bugs me to no end, because I rarely feel I've understood it, or even learned anything. I'm likely in the minority.
I always feel like I learn something, but by the end of an episode I'm completely lost. I love it.
For all the German speakers have a look at https://urknall-weltall-leben.de
For those of us of a certain age, does anyone else recall a series on PBS from the early 90s (maybe earlier) on physics and calculus? I remember whatching these programs well before I took those classes so that I didn't understand all of it, but when I finally got to them in school, the concepts in the videos made much more sense and the videos helped make sense of some of the textbook learning too.
Newton’s Apple? I loved that show.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_Apple
Oh wow, I had forgotten about that show. I had no idea that the theme was done by part of Kraftwerk.
Unfortunately, this is not the same show as I was originally thinking. The one I was thinking was more like a video class on physics subjects. More like teacher suplemental type stuff. It was the first example of video based teacher reinforcement stuff that clicked with me, and helped me actually like the subject matter.
Was it The Mechanical Universe (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8_xPU5epJddRABXqJ5h5G0dk...) from Caltech? I loved that series back in the day.
This might have been it. There are way more episodes than I was familiar. If it's not it, then all I've been reminded today is how much amazing content has been provided by PBS.
I've been a fan of many channels over the years, but one I've found recently that was very good is The Science Asylum: https://www.youtube.com/c/Scienceasylum/videos
My favorites are minutephysics and CGP Grey - but they have been very lacking in content lately.
This is the only Youtube channel where I watched __all videos__. In fact I watched many more than once! Ever since Gabe left and Matt took over the quality also increased tremendously. I've learned more about how the universe works from this source than any other source combined. this channel is a must for everybody interested in the topic!
I rewatch their videos on YouTube all the time. After maybe 8 watches each I begin to understand. It’s amazing and very well done.
The best thing about SpaceTime is the balance of how much content is slightly out of reach for an average viewer. Pushing that boundary is an important thing to do with educational content especially in a world where so many things are dumbed down.
I really enjoyed PBS Idea Channel when I was younger. I'm not sure about its vanguard today, but it was like VSauce but without the VSauce aspect.
I like it because they go one step further than other science outreach channels, and they don’t renounce on accuracy while simplifying obviously complex physics topics.
I’ve been watching these guys for years, they’re great. Perfectly approachable deep dives into things I know very little about… I love it.
I love the deep dives into the basics like the "What is energy?" and "True nature of matter and mass" episodes.
This, together with The History Guy and The Critical Drinker are my three favourite channels on YouTube.
I’ve been adding a bunch of new recommendations from this post… If you had to give like a one line pitch for each how would to describe them?
I just subscribed to several PBS channels. Thanks!!
I love this channel very much.
the quality has definitely gone downhill lately.
Compared to a couple years ago, they only lightly touch on topics rather than they deep dives they used to do.
Not sure if they are struggling for content or just a shift in priorities.
> the quality has definitely gone downhill lately.
I can't agree.
This video from a few weeks ago about the W Boson mass discrepancy is about as deep as a lay audience can hope to surmount:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Q4UAiKacw
Their series on the holographic universe was peak physics youtube.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKjJE86mQRtt-kzviEIwzEYOz...
Such an amazing channel & still one of my favorites, but I do wish they'd do more deep dives. Has seem scattered lately.
hard disagree. earlier content had more surface area to cover - as they get into more specific content in these latter years, of course topic delivery will get leaner
I love this channel.
Love this channel!
Great show
The only way I can pay on the net, is by using a wallet code (like with amazon). Namely, I need a monetary account I can fuel with wallet codes I will buy at my local monetary outlet. Then upon payment at pbs, I would log to this "wallet code" service where I would validate (one time code receive via email, sms, etc) that payment. All that must be possible with noscript/basic (x)html browsers.