Cool Worlds and Dr Becky are both pretty good for astronomy and general space stuff.
this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2024
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I left YouTube a long time ago for a couple reasons. But besides the content creators you mentioned, I also used to follow:
- ElectroBOOM: Mehdi talks about electrical engineer in a practical, humorous way. He has a segment called "Rectifiy" where he debunks internet videos, particularly these fake "Free energy" internet videos.
- The Action Lab: didactic experimentations with physics.
- Computerphille: interviews with teachers and specialist from several scientific and engineering fields, especially IT-related fields.
- 3Blue1Brown (IIRC): mathematician.
- Tom Scott, back when he produced videos: I guess everyone knows about him.
- Technology Connections: often focuses on household appliances (refrigerators, air conditioners, dishwashers, lamps, etc) but also explains applied scientific knowledge and also photography.
If I remember other content creators, I'll update my comment. It has been a long time since I abandoned YouTube.
Let’s talk about latent heat and the refrigeration cycle!!
Journey to the microcosmose is pretty great.
I use Hank's narrating the episode to help me to sleep, it's so soothing.
Sad that it's over now, the footage is absolutely stunning.
3blue1brown is phenomenal. It taught me how to understand a bunch of things better than studying them academically did.
“Journey to the Microcosmos” is wonderful.
ZeFrank has quite a lot of accurate biology if you want a humor channel in there.
PBS Eons is great.
I haven’t checked them out, but I feel like things like Nebula or CuriosityStream may be becoming better sources for this stuff than YouTube is. YouTube seems like it is becoming a chess, and I see no real reversal of that in the cards any time soon.
I'll second 3blue1brown.
Scott Manley is, of course, mainly interested in rockets, but does cover sciencey things too (I believe he's a former professional astronomer).
I like Cleo Abram's "optimistic science" shorts.
Love Scott Manley!
After looking up Cleo Abram I remembered I watched a video where she was hanging out with a paleontologist and that I enjoyed how geeked out she was to find some fossils :) I’ll check out those shorts! Shorts are nice with the kids too. They’re still a bit younger but are curious so that may be the perfect length.
Awesome, thanks for the recommendations!
I’ll have to take a closer look at Nebula and CuriosityStream. I think they come up in ads enough that they wind up on my mental ad blocker so I’ve never looked closely at them :)
Yeah. I haven’t looked at them yet for that exact reason, but the argument is making sense to me.
Angela Collier has some great stuff on physics, and she's a great teacher.
ThreeBlueOneBrown is a good math channel, helped me understand calculus way easier than school did.
The Engineering Mindset is a good engineering one, explains how all sorts of things work from inverters to refrigeration to vehicle transmissions
Thanks, saving this for the future.
I'd add Electroboom (Electrical Engineering), Tom Stanton (Engineer who makes a lot of engines to fly planes), Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't (Botany), Periodic Videos (Chemistry), Practical Engineering (Civil Engineering), Nick Zentner (Geology).
Integza does mostly rocket engineering videos but is very good. 12Tone does music analysis (which I didn’t think I’d be interested in but it’s actually super interesting)
Minute Physics is great as well for general physics in bite size chunks.
What If is by Randall Monroe of XKCD where he answers ridiculous questions using science and math to give serious (if crazy) answers.
BPS.Space builds rockets and is very good at explaining the why of what he’s doing.
Mark Rober is good and hits at about a high school level general science and engineering.
Thought Emporium does mostly bioengineering but ventures into a verity of topics.
Legal Eagle is good at US based law topics.
I will 100% vouch for Nebula. It’s a great service that also directly supports creators more than YouTube does. You can find many educational YouTubers there.
Anton Petrov ("Hello, Wonderful Person!") is quite good IMO.
PBS Space Time and Eons (and as others have already said, Journey to the Microcosmos).
Kurzgesagt is fun and AFAIK always tries to be accurate (they've been quick to publish correction videos when necessary).
I'll second other's recommendation for CuriosityStream and Standup Maths. Matt's also part of at least one good podcast, "A Podcast of Unnecessary Detail" which is informative and entertaining.
kurzgesagt is a bit...controversial...when it comes to their "current affairs" content:
for example: their climate science content is blatantly misleading in almost all videos.
they push a kind of "tech optimism" at the cost of presenting practical solutions among other "solutions" that are just straight-up greenwashing bs.
here's a video that lays it all out, there's a LOT to cover:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCuy1DaQzWI
that said, their "what if?" and futurology content is excellent!
just have to stay skeptical about anything related to capitalism...including climate change and green tech.
Kyle Hill and his Half Life Histories are excellent. The rest of the channel is fun but these are very well researched essays.
Smarter Every Day, Veritasium
I would classify those as pop science, preferring storytelling to science. A bit too handwavy.
That Veritasium video about electricity was absolute bullshit. For however many minutes long it was, he didn't once use the word "induction" or try to actually explain anything. The video was basically "electricity is voodoo". I immediately unsubscribed, and I can't even stand seeing his face anymore.
If your shitty science video spawns multiple video responses from your betters calling you out on your bullshit, you are a bad science YouTuber and should stop making videos.
The good thing about it is that it can hopefully spark intrigue in some or many.
I remember young self, equally interested in pop science (then magazines).
But yes, the bad part is people thinking they learned something from the videos. It's mostly entertainment, not reflecting the science honestly.
Flammable Maths and matholiger for maths.
Cody's lab for general crazyness. Currently building a mars base replica.
Al muqaddimah for arab history and kobean history for european history. Dime store adventures for new england history.
Bruce Yeany for small and fun science experiments.
Computerphile. Periodic Videos.
Deep look for (insect) biology.
EEVblog and greatscott for electronics.
Engineerguy for deep dives into products.
NightHawkInLight, NurdRage, for fun diy chemistry.
Sui Generis Brewing for fermenting.
Sixty Symbols is great.
From the ones ive seen mentioned, I second Electroboom, Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't, Practical Engineering, ZeFrank, and Kurzgesagt.
If you like biology and evolution, I would recommend Lindsay Nikole.
If you like deep dives into various types of engineering, I would recommend Real Engineering. He does a lot of aviation and aerospace stuff.
::: spoiler list Geology hub (inactive/amateur/recent vulcanologist)
Shawn Willsey (professor of geology)
Sabine Hossenfelder (inactive physicist)
Two Minute Papers (active AI light researcher)
Real Science (dunno, but cites proper sources)
Fraser Cain (Masters, astronomy news and media)
Arvin Ash (Mechanical Engineering/ claims life long learner and posts physics content with sources)
7 Days of Science (few kids presently in Uni with VERY bright futures in paleontology reporting on papers and discoveries)
Ben G Thomas (principal Uni kid of 7DoS and apparent future paleontologist)
DJ Ware (Masters/Doc? In CS? and a former Bell Labs guy)
Curious Marc (Masters/Doc? EE? another former Bell Labs guy)
The Signal Path (Masters/Doc? EE, Grand Master of the dark arts of high frequency and radio, currently at Bell Labs)
Scott Manley (Masters/Doc? inactive astronomer, rocket nerd)
Dr. Becky (Professor of astronomy)
Stewart Hicks (Professor of Architecture)
Anything from Hank Green (SciShow) or from Brady Haron (Computerphile, Deep Sky Videos, Periodic Videos, Objectivity)
The Thought Emporium (Masters/Doc? in organic chemistry)
Breaking Taps (Professor of applied science)
Mathias Wandel (EE and former lead engineer from Blackberry)
Stuff Made Here (lead engineer from Form Labs)
Economics Explained (Professor of Economics)
Cool Worlds (Professor of Astronomy, a leading researcher for exo-moons)
Dr. Ben Miles (Physicist, head of a venture capital firm)
Stephen Milo (Masters/Doc? in archeology)
Practical Engineering (Civil Engineer)
Andreas Spies (retired EE and best source for hobby electronics and Arduino type stuff)
EEVBlog (EE)
Ben Eater (Professor of CS)
Hexibase (audio engineer)
Huygens Optics (Retired Professor? Hints like he worked at ASML. The principal optics YouTuber)
Nile Red (Chemist)
Prompt Engineering (CS, applied AI, active dev)
Robert Miles (Doctorate, AI alignment researcher)
Tech Ingredients (Applied Science)
Yannic Kilcher (Doctorate, AI researcher for Meta and probably the most advanced present researcher posting content directly)
Applied Science (Doc of Applied Science, magnetics specialist)
Others I watch were already mentioned like Anton Petrov, Nick Zentner, etc.
Universe today. Fraser Cain. Great in depth interviews with astronomers and other space scientists.