I hate Quanta a lot

a vast amount of fluff for less than a college statistics professor would (hopefully) be able to impart with a chalkboard in 10 minutes, when Quanta has the ability to prepare animated diagrams like 3Blue1Brown but chooses not to use it

they could go down myriad paths, like how it provides that random walks on square lattices are asymptotically isotropic, or give any other simple easy-to-understand applications (like getting an asymptotic on the expected # of rolls of an n-sided die before the first reoccurring face) or explain what a normal distribution is, but they only want to tell a story to convey a feeling

they are a blight upon this world for not using their opportunity to further public engagement in a meaningful way

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throwaway81523 5 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Quanta used to have tons of good stuff and not much crap. Now there's enough crap that if there's still good stuff, it gets lost in the noise.

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tptacek 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A lot of times on HN when a math topic comes up that isn't about 3b1b, someone will jump in to say "this isn't as good as 3b1b". Last time I saw that, I was moved to comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45800657

3b1b doesn't have the same goal as Quanta, or as introductory guides. It's actually not that great a teaching tool (it's truly great at what it is for, which is (a) appreciation and motivation, and (b) allowing people to signal how smart they are on message board threads by talking about how much people would get out of watching 3b1b).

This is prose writing about math. It's something you're meant to read for enjoyment. If you don't enjoy it, fine; I don't enjoy cowboy fiction. So I don't read it. I don't so much look for opportunities to yell at how much I hate "The Ballad of Easy Breezy".

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bmenrigh 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don’t fault Quanta (or 3b1b) for being the way they are. Each is serving their goal audience pretty well.

My compliant is only that there should be a dozen more just like them, each competing with each other for the best, most engaging math and science content. This would allow for more a broader audience skillevel to be reached.

As it stands, we’re lucky even to have Quanta and 3b1b.

I think there is hope though, quite a few new-ish creators on YouTube are following in Grant’s footsteps and producing very technically detailed and informative content at similar quality levels.

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paulpauper 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

there is no getting around that learning math requires actually having to buckle down and read and do math . A video will not suffice.

	▲	DroneBetter 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		well for one who does buckle down and read and do math, the expected amount of new information brought to them by a 3B1B video as supplementary material upon a topic (with the normal distribution being one that admits a direct comparison from the article) is nonzero, by merit of it possibly having ideas to convey from outside their usual purview and formal background that may be applicable to the doing of math (as has been the case for me, someone who [does math](https://oeis.org/wiki/User:Natalia_L._Skirrow)), while for Quanta fluff pieces it's zero. by the metric of "if this expository piece were to be taken to a time before its subject had been considered and presented to researchers, how useful would its outline be towards reproducing the theory in its totality," Quanta's writings (on both classical and research math) mostly score 0
	▲	tptacek 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Couldn't agree more, which is why I think it's odd to suggest that a pop-sci magazine article is somehow a disservice that 3b1b would correct.

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KnuthIsGod 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

3Blue1Brown

Seems a bit like Ted Talks. Lightweight popcorn for the simple minded.

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7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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