patterns

Mathologer shows how times table diagrams on a circle produce cardioids and other curves connected to the Mandelbrot set. He explains the patterns and links to a tool for making your own diagrams.

A short animated simulation comparing how Multics and Unix were developed, showing why Unix's small composable programs and pipes gave it a efficiency advantage. It frames Unix as a moonshot achievable by a small team.

Tom Scott stands by a construction site and explains why reversing vehicles now use a white-noise hiss instead of beeping. The sound is easier to locate directionally and less annoying to neighbours.

Tom Scott visits Penistone to explain the Scunthorpe problem, showing why naive web and profanity filters block innocent words.

Vox's Joe Posner, with help from 99% Invisible, explains why bad doors are everywhere. It covers Don Norman's long-running complaint about doors and the idea that good design should not need instructions.

3Blue1Brown explains why plotting primes in polar coordinates produces spiral patterns, using modular arithmetic, Dirichlet's theorem and rational approximations of pi.

Veritasium shows silicone oil droplets bouncing on a vibrating bath, a physical analogue of pilot wave theory that reproduces quantum-like behavior such as double-slit patterns.

Tom Scott investigates moire-effect beacons, called Inogon leading marks, a Swedish invention from the 1980s that shows different patterns depending on the viewer's position. He visits one used to mark an undersea cable and tracks down its history.