YouTube is a medium famed (and feared) for its ability to take the viewer on an endless ride with its surprisingly insistent suggestions. Accordingly, the article below, while it actually refers to whole groups of videos, is a collection of ‘seed’ videos. If any of these catches the reader’s interest, we can depend on YouTube to show the way to many more.
Powers of Ten, Charles and Ray Eames
Uploaded by: Eames Office
A 1977 short film taking the viewer through forty orders of magnitude, zooming out from a sleeping man at a picnic out to the edge of the known universe, and then back in all the way to a proton in the nucleus of a carbon atom in a DNA molecule in the nucleus of a blood cell in his hand.
Chal Chal Sakhi, Shankar Tucker, featuring Ankita Joshi
Uploaded by: Shankar Tucker
A mind-blowing fusion piece with guitar, bass, cajon, drums, tabla, clarinet and Hindustani classical vocals.
Bohemian Gravity, Tim Blais
Uploaded by: acapellascience
Parody of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody by a physics student. I don’t pretend to understand this song, but the performance is entertaining regardless.
How to Wash Your Hands in Space, Chris Hadfield
Uploaded by: VideoFromSpace
Part of a series of videos showing Commander Chris Hadfield performing various activities aboard the International Space Station, made in the style of regular YouTube how-to videos, often in response to people’s questions.
Non-Newtonian Fluid in Slow Motion, Gavin Free and Daniel Gruchy
Uploaded by: The Slow Mo Guys
The channel has extremely high-fps videos of random processes, from filming falling drops on a superhydrophobic surface at GE, to hitting blobs of jelly with a tennis racket. In this video, a cornstarch solution seems to come alive on the drum of a speaker.
Doodling in Math Class: Connecting the Dots, Victoria Hart
Uploaded by: Vi Hart
Fast-paced and inspiring, Vi Hart’s Doodling in Math Class videos are good for multiple watches, and apart from the mathematical insight, they do provide great ideas even for brainless doodling. These videos are probably responsible for sparking the interest of hundreds of thousands of people in multiple fields of maths, science, music and doodle-art.
