Determinant Zen

[chgenly]

Pavel Grinfeld is my new favorite lecturer. I was watching his excellent course on tensors. I needed to go back to linear algebra and review determinants. So I looked up his determinant video from his linear algebra series. I found this video. What is this madman doing?! He's using a laser level to organize his writing. What overkill!. What obsessive behavior! But no. It turns out he's a consummate lecturer presenting fundamental properties of the determinant. Fundamental enough that they deserve great care in writing and presenting. His display results in quite a compact summary that crystallizes the subject. He produced a work of art! Not the kind of art most people think of, but art nonetheless. His next lecture beautifully explains his summary (which I also consider part of his art). I really enjoyed this.

[scorch_d]

I appreciate how much time this must've taken irl, so I watched the whole thing on 1x speed and just enjoyed the process

[ektabansal]

we are seeing it as in video otherwise it was unbelievable, great job sir

[arcana]

Thank you, you've made my day! I appreciate your obsession in making these videos as clean, clear and thoughtful as possible!

[joebloggsgogglebox]

The number 1 at the top left is a few millimeters out, I suggest you redo the whole thing with higher precision instruments.

[georgeorourke]

The care in presenting the material is the reflection of the beauty and enchantment of determinats, linear algebra and tensor calculus. if you don't get it this is not a site for you. Prof Grinfeld is awakening us to the majesty of this subject. Thank you.

[jeremyglebderg]

The audio sounds pretty cool if you put the video on 2x speed.

[ebn__]

One could say he was determinant to make his lines straight.

[knivesoutcatchdamouse]

I, like you, have great difficulty drawing a straight line unaided. Also, If I am writing paragraphs or doing equations on a sheet of unruled paper, everything soon starts tilting off to an angle, similar to your Leaning Tower columns.

Not that I don't get what this video was about. It is very beautiful to see elegant equations and relations presented in a pleasing arrangement and you achieved that here with much care and precision!

[thetedmang]

Thank you for this magnificent work of art and thank you for the tremendous amount of effort you put into this series. You are the world's premier lecturer on Linear Algebra.

[BlueHawkPictures]

tfw there are too many different notations for the same thing and you don't know which one you'll use forever because one would look clean but the other would encode more information and another would be easier to write.

[dabigfat]

pavan has gone mad! he needs to come back to the tensor video days where the notations are still... liberal...

[solfeinberg]

I was watching this for quite awhile waiting to learn something - I want my 3 minutes back!