What makes a great math explanation? | SoME2 results

Winners and honorable mentions for the SoME2 contest

Post with links to all entries:

**Winners**

Clear Crystal Conundrums, A Multifaceted Intro to Group Theory

The Lore of Calculus

How Realistic CGI Works (And How To Do It Way Faster)

Percolation: a Mathematical Phase Transition

The Coolest Hat Puzzle

**Honorable mentions**

How to Take the Factorial of Any Number

How are memories stored in neural networks?

The shapes of waves of ships and ducks

Differentiable Programming from Scratch

Researchers Use Group Theory to Speed Up Algorithms — Introduction to Groups

Pleasing Panoramas and Matrix Multiplication

A Tale of Tangent Spheres

Why there are no perfect maps (and why we eat pizza the way we do)

What Lies Between a Function and Its Derivative?

1 Billion is Tiny in an Alternate Universe: Introduction to p-adic Numbers

The Mathematical Problem with Music, and How to Solve It

A Curious Track, or What Bikes Are Hiding From Us

An Inverse Turing Test

What A General Diagonal Argument Looks Like (Category Theory)

Why the Circle encloses the Largest Area | Explained using Hill Climbing

The Amazing Math behind Colors!

An Interactive Guide for Bézier Curves

Does Every Game Have a Winner

A Finite Game of Infinite Rounds

Numberphile's Square-Sum Problem was solved!

Timestamps:
0:00 - The rising tide
2:08 - Choosing winners
2:54 - Motivation (macro)
8:09 - Motivation (micro)
10:55 - Clarity
12:57 - Novelty
14:26 - Memorability
15:07 - Winners

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These animations are largely made using a custom python library, manim. See the FAQ comments here:

You can find code for specific videos and projects here:

Music by Vincent Rubinetti.

Download the music on Bandcamp:

Stream the music on Spotify:

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Various social media stuffs:

[bluebrown]

**Winners**

Clear Crystal Conundrums, A Multifaceted Intro to Group Theory

The Lore of Calculus

How Realistic CGI Works (And How To Do It Way Faster)

Percolation: a Mathematical Phase Transition

The Coolest Hat Puzzle

**Honorable mentions**

How to Take the Factorial of Any Number

How are memories stored in neural networks?

The shapes of waves of ships and ducks

Differentiable Programming from Scratch

Researchers Use Group Theory to Speed Up Algorithms — Introduction to Groups

Pleasing Panoramas and Matrix Multiplication

A Tale of Tangent Spheres

Why there are no perfect maps (and why we eat pizza the way we do)

What Lies Between a Function and Its Derivative?

1 Billion is Tiny in an Alternate Universe: Introduction to p-adic Numbers

The Mathematical Problem with Music, and How to Solve It

A Curious Track, or What Bikes Are Hiding From Us

An Inverse Turing Test

What A General Diagonal Argument Looks Like (Category Theory)

Why the Circle encloses the Largest Area | Explained using Hill Climbing

The Amazing Math behind Colors!

An Interactive Guide for Bézier Curves

Does Every Game Have a Winner

A Finite Game of Infinite Rounds

Numberphile's Square-Sum Problem was solved!

There were so many excellent ones that even a selection of 25 feels like an arbitrary and cruel cut-off. I highly encourage you to take a look at all the other entries as well, see the video description.

[xyzct]

As a 60 year old life-long mathematics enthusiast, the vast number of superb math videos on YouTube is truly one of my greatest joys.

[jukmifggugghposer]

It's been so cool seeing smaller math channels getting wider attention recently. This SoME2 stuff is sweet.

[WendimuSitotaw]

Kudos to you for helping the creators get inspired, Grant!

[santiagoabril]

The increase of math videos has been incredible but even more important is the high quality of the content and the animations, Manim is really an awesome tool we need to thank you for. You really taught a man, or even better the YouTube community, how to fish.

[果凍鯊]

Personally, I think one of the best sections of SOME a whole is the peer review. When Grant metioned any one of these entries, viewers would come up something like, 'I voted this once!'. And that is a huge feel of achivement to gather the whole community together.

[mike]

In spite of how humble you tend to be about this, I think you are leading the charge in the most important advancement of math and science education. After recently returning to school for my masters, I am convinced that the biggest hurdle in learning is not the supposed difficulty of a subject but rather the quality of the explanation. Everything you've done with this channel has dramatically increased the quality and accessibility of educational resources and should ultimately lead to a deeper and more widespread understanding of math and science. Thank you.

[Oler-yxxj]

SoMe2 was great not just because it inspiered creators, but it also gave them a promotion: all of them had the same tags and "SoME2 " in titles (Also a shared initial viewers as it turns out). It resulted in that after me (And probably not me alone) watched one of them, youtube started recomending all of them to me.

[DrTrefor]

Thanks so much for organizing and inspiring so many amazing entires, it has been a pleasure watching so much cool math!

[al.]

Grant will be remembered in the history of the internet for revolutionising and building the math community as it is becoming now. I am going to cry

[NMRMRI]

Wonderful! A quick note to those who didn't 'win' the contest:
I actually watched most of the SoME2 entries this last month, and the videos that I most enjoyed and provided the most value to me in my field (physics and engineering) didn't get a mention in this video. Not that I disagree with the winner list - they are all fantastic! I just wanted to give a shoutout to the non-winners and encourage creators to keep creating. I'm a University professor and I've shared many of the SoME2 entries with my students and colleagues. So whether or not a video made the 3b1b list, it is likely that someone out there was enlightened and inspired by it!

Also, I encourage everyone to leave appreciative and supportive comments on the videos you enjoy. Especially for younger channels, the act of a stranger on the internet showing appreciation is incredibly motivating.

Cheers to Grant and this channel for accelerating the rise of top-notch educational content on YouTube!

[AnotherRoof]

Can't be bitter about not winning -- the winners submitted great videos! I've wanted to make videos for years and this challenge gave me the kick up the backside to finally make it happen, as well as jump-starting my channel from nothing. Thank you!

[EpsilonDeltaMain]

I wouldn't have thought to make a math channel without you!!

I learned it is surprisingly hard to keep the pedagogy in a way to motivate a reason to be excited for an idea and there were many brilliant submissions that did just that!!

I definitely have a long way to go, and although I didn't make the winning list, I am glad I made the top 100!!

[AmoghA]

Hey Grant! You might not see this but I wanted to let you know about the impact your videos have had on my life. Inspired from the beauty and depth of math and science, I’ve decided to pursue Masters in Physics (which I wanted to do since a kid) and watching your videos have cemented the fact that I absolutely love physics and mathematics. A simple “Upload to YouTube” you’ve done multiple times has changed my life forever, for good, and many others too I hope.
Keep up the good work. The content you produce is REALLY inspiring.

[WAMTAT]

Grant, the maths community owes you a debt of gratitude, you've definitely boosted understanding and love of the subject.

[MATHsegnale]

One of the most beautiful aspects of Mathematics is when people communicate it to others. This has been inspiring in so many way, and it has been a pleasure to participate! It is a honour to get the mention! Thank you!!

[angel-ig]

I think you are one of the most important people for math communication to have ever lived. First, with your channel, where many first found the beauty of math. Then with open-sourcing Manim, and now with two editions of SoME (and hopefully more to come), expanding the variety and quality of math content online with channels which otherwise wouldn't exist.

Thank you, SoME community; but most importantly, thank you, Grant.

[Bismuth]

Great job on another successful Summer of Math Exposition! Like I mentioned to you two months ago, last year's initiative gave me the push I needed to formulate what would eventually become an hour long talk on the place of science in video game speedrunning and the place of speedrunning as an introduction to science. I gave this talk in Germany this summer and I will be doing it again in other events in the future. You are an inspiration for anyone who wishes to educate on YouTube!

[pulkitgera]

learning becomes so much more fun when things are taught for learning and not for completing the syllabus. Thanks for this movement. I slept through my group theory class but enjoyed so much going through the video

[true_xander]

Few years ago I stumbled upon this channel while was in search of some algebraic explanations. Now I'm happily watching almost every math video that Youtube proposes to me because the math made me even more curious!

Unfortunatelly, I'm still not understand even the half of it, but one day I will :D