self
21:36Fractals are typically not self-similar
4.6M views • 9 years ago
3Blue1Brown
3Blue1Brown explains fractal dimension and shows why many fractals are not strictly self-similar. Self-similarity turns out to be a special case of the broader idea of fractional dimension.
7:15A Selfish Argument for Making the World a Better Place – Egoistic Altruism
11.4M views • 8 years ago
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
Kurzgesagt makes a selfish case for improving the world, arguing that helping people far away raises prosperity and innovation for everyone, including yourself. The animated video frames this as egoistic altruism and positive-sum cooperation.
9:06Vancouver Never Plays Itself
2.2M views • 11 years ago
Every Frame a Painting
A video essay from Every Frame a Painting about Vancouver, a major film production city that almost never appears onscreen as itself. It shows clips of films and TV shot there that pass the city off as somewhere else.
4:30Traffic Has a Perfect Solution. Humans Are the Problem.
44.6M views • 10 years ago
CGP Grey
CGP Grey explains how traffic jams come from human driving behavior such as tailgating and reaction delays, and how leaving gaps and smoothing speed would reduce congestion. It also touches on self-driving cars.
Topic match · Self-driving & autonomous vehicles
6:06The 7 Habits of Highly Miserable People
14.7M views • 9 years ago
CGP Grey
CGP Grey's sarcastic animated video adapted from the book How to Be Miserable, listing habits that reliably make people unhappy. By inverting the advice, it shows what to avoid and prompts reflection on goals and routines.
Topic match · Productivity & self-improvement
6:34Why Is It So Hard to Do Something That Should Be Easy? (Wall of Awful pt. 1)
2.1M views • 7 years ago
How to ADHD
A short How to ADHD explainer, featuring Brendan Mahan, on why simple tasks can feel impossible for people with ADHD. It introduces the 'wall of awful', a pile of past failures, shame and anxiety that builds up in front of a task and blocks starting it.
Topic match · Productivity & self-improvement
10:09RSA ANIMATE: The Secret Powers of Time
4.4M views • 16 years ago
Royal Society of Arts
An RSA Animate illustrating a lecture by psychologist Philip Zimbardo on how people's perspectives on time (past, present, future) shape work, health and well-being.
Topic match · Productivity & self-improvement
11:06The Map of Mathematics
16.3M views • 9 years ago
Domain of Science
An animated 11-minute tour of the whole field of mathematics as a single map, showing how pure and applied math and their sub-fields relate to each other.
6:00Rhyme: Why Eminem is one of the most impressive lyricists ever
3.7M views • 13 years ago
Library of Alexandria
A re-upload of a video breaking down Eminem's rhyme schemes, showing multi-syllable and internal rhymes in songs such as Lose Yourself. It aims to show why he is considered a standout lyricist.
3:57How Do Bikes Stay Up?
1.7M views • 11 years ago
minutephysics
A short minutephysics video explaining why bicycles stay upright. It looks at gyroscopic precession, head angle and centre of mass, and shows that bikes self-steer toward the direction they lean.
9:48Bitcoin Q&A: How Do I Secure My Bitcoin?
117K views • 9 years ago
aantonop
Andreas Antonopoulos answers a question about how to secure your Bitcoin. He covers holding your own keys, backing up the 12 to 24 word seed phrase, and the tradeoffs of custodial accounts, phone wallets and hardware wallets.
10:13The Problem with Time & Timezones - Computerphile
4.4M views • 12 years ago
Computerphile
Tom Scott explains for Computerphile why handling time and timezones in code is so hard, walking through a simple web app that computes how long ago something happened. It covers the quirks of timezones and calendars and ends in an exasperated rant.
12:46The Speed of Light is NOT About Light
7.1M views • 11 years ago
PBS Space Time
PBS Space Time argues that the speed of light is better understood as the speed of causality, the universal limit on how fast cause and effect propagate. Light travels at that speed because it is massless, but the limit itself is a property of spacetime.
10:36Why Would AI Want to do Bad Things? Instrumental Convergence
274K views • 8 years ago
Robert Miles AI Safety
Robert Miles explains instrumental convergence: why an AGI with almost any goal would tend to pursue sub-goals like self-preservation and resource acquisition. It builds on Omohundro's basic AI drives and his orthogonality thesis video.
10:58Flaw in the Enigma Code - Numberphile
5.4M views • 13 years ago
Numberphile
Numberphile's Dr James Grime explains the flaw in the Enigma machine, namely that a letter could never be encrypted to itself, and how that helped the Allies break the code. It touches on the Bombe and Alan Turing.
10:00Is The Alcubierre Warp Drive Possible? | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
2.5M views • 11 years ago
PBS Space Time
PBS Space Time introduces Miguel Alcubierre's warp drive, explaining how spacetime itself could be warped rather than moving a ship through it, and whether it is physically possible.
2:53Brené Brown on Empathy
24.1M views • 12 years ago
Royal Society of Arts
A short animated RSA piece with Dr Brene Brown's voiceover on the difference between empathy and sympathy. She argues that real connection requires getting in touch with your own vulnerability, rather than trying to fix someone's pain.
28:44Arcologies
397K views • 10 years ago
Isaac Arthur
An Isaac Arthur episode on arcologies, self-sufficient habitats that could house whole cities, on Earth or on harsh worlds. It covers how such structures might work and what limits their size.
9:32The Higgs Mechanism Explained | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
2.7M views • 10 years ago
PBS Space Time
PBS Space Time explains the Higgs field and how the Higgs mechanism gives particles mass within quantum field theory. It is a ten-minute overview for a lay audience.