Let me just say it up front: I love YouTube. Anything, everything you’ve ever wanted to learn, from fixing a faulty toilet to calculus for dummies is there in multiple ways.
Smart and talented people are eager to show you how to get things done. And some of it can be quite “elegant”, as my high school geometry teacher Mr. Cavallaro would say, after putting the down the chalk.
I will write more in a future newsletter about my plan to use YouTube to teach myself topics that were great failures in my formal education, like chemistry and calculus, poetry and prose. We’ll get to that later. YouTube is instrumental in my life long learning lessons.
But for now I want to share three videos that go the core of my being as A Geek In The Garden. Two are eloquent discussions about math and technology. The third, a joyous hummingbird geek who’s captivating interest in feeding her hummingbirds have made her the object of their desire.
First up: This video caught me off guard. In a good way. In my quest to teach myself calculus, I stumbled across this demonstration computing the area of a circle. Of course we all know that the area of a circle is π r squared. But how do we know this? How can we derive that formula graphically? Intuitively? A proof, as they say in math circles. Eddie Woo has a really elegant demonstration, dubbed the Onion Proof. He takes a circle and divides it into lots of little circles, like the layers in an onion. He then unwinds each onion slice into a strip, lays the strips next to each other and voila he turns the circle into a triangle and out pops the formula. Really visual, poof! This is really elegant, MATHPHOBES: NO MATH REQUIRED! Just visuals! I’ll let him explain the rest. Just watch, stick with it, and enjoy…
Eddi Woo’s demonstration is elegant because it makes us think in a unique way about a circle. You don’t need to know math to understand it. It passes the light-bulb-above-your-head test. But others are elegant in their narrative techniques.
Next, presented for your consideration is an elegant explanation of what can we do with the glut of lithium ion batteries that are thrown away and not recycled. Matt Ferrell has a wonderful YouTube channel, “Undecided,” which in this episode he meticulously researches and explorers the surprising future of batteries. Ferrell has paid close attention to the graphics and narrative in this video. He knows that battery storage is not a sexy topic so he keeps us visually interested in an elegant, compelling story. See if you don’t agree and come away knowing something you didn’t ten minutes earlier.
Finally, the Urban Dictionary defines geek as “One who passionately engages in one or more things to extreme levels.” (http://bit.ly/2UD3YDj)
The woman in this video fits that description to a tee. In a good way. People who have listened to me spout on the radio for years about how much trouble I have attracting hummingbirds to my garden can attest to my envy of the attraction hummingbirds have for this woman. They will fly into her house to seek her out. Even if the magic of hummingbirds has not been your passion, just watch how nonchalantly she goes about preparing sugar water for a flock of hundreds rivaling for her attention. You might change your mind…
Thanks for watching. Next time the Luddite in me: “Let me fix it, damn-it!” How companies might sue you if you try to fix your own stuff. Stop that! Please click to join the newsletter list. See ya…