PBS has always been very interested in educating people in all sorts of topics ranging from history, politics, and science. I've always been impressed with their ability, no matter where they're creating content, to very effectively explain even the most complicated subjects in a manner that is easy to understand. They do have a number of channels on YouTube that they either fund, support, or produce that has this type of content. In much of them I have learned a lot about a number of subjects I had thought I was already familiar with. And at the very least even I I really did already fully understand a subject, they presented a much, much simpler explanation that would be useful for explaining to others in the future. I'll link to a few of their great channels by posting example videos of subjects that people rarely understand but hear about a lot. I suggest you go ahead and click subscribe on all of them. And maybe even binge on the videos on their channels.
First up is It's Okay To Be Smart. This one covers a very large range of topics. It tries to not get too technical. The example video I chose was the one on El Nino. We hear about that all the time but almost no one actually even knows what it is. This video explains it perfectly.
Next is my personal favorite, PBS Space Time. This channel assumes you already have a firm understanding of basic physics but it does an amazing job at teaching concepts about higher physics as well as astrophysics. I chose for the example their video on the Higgs field. We heard about a lot with the Higgs boson discovery, but basically no one understands what the field even is, how it relates to mass, and what the boson has to do with it.
BrainCraft is up next. This one focuses on psychology and behavior, talking a lot about why we do the things we do. For this I chose the video explaining why people are often so easily fooled by things that are not true.
Next one is Gross Science. It focuses on topics that are questions we always wanted to know but are not often asked because of how, well, disgusting they are. For this one I picked their video on cavities because so many don't understand those at all.
Last one I'll include in this post is PhysicsGirl. Here, she hands more basic physics than SpaceTime, and probably is a vey good primer for you to get a better grasp of Physics if you want to watch SpaceTime but never were able to understand physics before. The video I chose was their simple introduction for special relativity:
These are fantastic education channels and they are absolutely worth watching. And subscribing to so you have a healthy supply of new material to learn about every week. Never stop your education! Learning is fun.
For the rest of this thread, I think it'd be a good idea to share specific videos from these channels that really helped you understand a topic that you were struggling to understand so that it's there as a quick resource for others.
First up is It's Okay To Be Smart. This one covers a very large range of topics. It tries to not get too technical. The example video I chose was the one on El Nino. We hear about that all the time but almost no one actually even knows what it is. This video explains it perfectly.
Next is my personal favorite, PBS Space Time. This channel assumes you already have a firm understanding of basic physics but it does an amazing job at teaching concepts about higher physics as well as astrophysics. I chose for the example their video on the Higgs field. We heard about a lot with the Higgs boson discovery, but basically no one understands what the field even is, how it relates to mass, and what the boson has to do with it.
BrainCraft is up next. This one focuses on psychology and behavior, talking a lot about why we do the things we do. For this I chose the video explaining why people are often so easily fooled by things that are not true.
Next one is Gross Science. It focuses on topics that are questions we always wanted to know but are not often asked because of how, well, disgusting they are. For this one I picked their video on cavities because so many don't understand those at all.
Last one I'll include in this post is PhysicsGirl. Here, she hands more basic physics than SpaceTime, and probably is a vey good primer for you to get a better grasp of Physics if you want to watch SpaceTime but never were able to understand physics before. The video I chose was their simple introduction for special relativity:
These are fantastic education channels and they are absolutely worth watching. And subscribing to so you have a healthy supply of new material to learn about every week. Never stop your education! Learning is fun.
For the rest of this thread, I think it'd be a good idea to share specific videos from these channels that really helped you understand a topic that you were struggling to understand so that it's there as a quick resource for others.
