Vi Hart

For those who like math and representations, I recommand Vi Hart's page http://vihart.com/, cool animation lost memories.

And especially the vlog serie she has done on plant growth, Fibonacci and Phi angles: Being a plant.

Vi Hart is *awesome*. Heard about her in the context of her .999... video, and not seen the Phi ones before, and they're just as good.

She went to Stony Brook; same as me. I think I'm in love!
(meow meow meow)

Thx for the .999 pointer... So does .999... == 1?

What about in our Real world where you hit a Planck limit?
What is the biggest number smaller than 1 and not .999? a surreal?

How exaclty is she awesome?

She is describing herself as a mathemusician.
Well, first she could drop the 'math' part.
Co-authoring a few papers on foldings with ~10 people including the Demaine's family does not make you a mathematician.

I don't understand what's the exact point of her "math" videos.
At first, I thought it serves a noble purpose: giving the general public
some interest in maths.
In fact, she's just showing off in a totally ridiculous way.
Take the anti-pi video for instance, or "where she shows that, unlike the man in the street, she knows that being irrational for a real is not such a big deal".
She gives other examples of irrational numbers appearing in simple geometry...
none of them being as pi a transcendental number.

From what I heard, she can drop the musician part as well.

I think she's an interesting artist but she's definitely too ambitious in pitifully proving herself to be 'so universally gifted'.

I do not understand this tendency, in modern society, to try to appear as a genius when it is obviously not the case.

I think she is awesome in the sense Martin Gardner was awesome... Sure he did not say he was a mathematician, but he has done more for the interest of many people for math than most “official” mathematicians.

What is wrong in what she says about Pi, is Pi infinite?
Also being transcendental (which is hard to explain to the public) makes it even more common as Georg Cantor proved that the algebraic numbers are the rare countable ones and the transcendental numbers are the common uncountable ones...

Ok, so she's a (mathematical) jester.
To be honest, she probably tried to be an 'official' mathematician first.

Why would you say something like:

"What is wrong in what she says about Pi, is Pi infinite?"

I wasn't rude to you.

Again: among the real numbers appearing in the simple geometric figure she presented, pi was *special* in being the only transcendental number. So, it was a kind of fail.

I am done discussing this.
It is already too much time spent.

Umm..., pi is not infinite. It is less than 4. It has an infinitely long not repeating decimal representation, but it is not an infinite number.

@edbonnet, perhaps Vi Hart is better described as a "Mathematical Groupie".
I would be more inclined to aim my canons and thunder at stupid movies and documentaries that have sounds in outer space, where there is no air to carry sound. "Oh, sounds in outer space make cheap dramatisation easier, and the general populace would not know any better, anyway".

I feel a bit sad that in these recent days, I now know how to say Gucci as Goochee and not Gucky. Something not to be very proud of, I think.

She interesting presents mathematical concepts in an entertaining, and visually stimulating way. There was absolutely nothing in any of her videos that I wasn't already fully aware of (I have plenty of Ian Stewart on my bookshelf, for example), but I've already walked the walk. It's the teenagers who need stimulating, not the graduates.

Were I to be given the choice of purging Vi Hart from youtube, or purging the two English professional physicists who pretend to be mathematicians, and roll out the most dangerously misleading (i.e. just plain wrong, in many fundamental ways) proofs of the value of 1+2+3+4+5... from youtube, then Vi Hart would have absolutely nothing to worry about. Found'em with a quick google. Not gonna name them, as I don't want anyone seeing their misleading crap.

@Carroll: "but he has done more for the interest of many people for math than most "official" mathematicians." - indeed!

One person who's done significantly more in the present day is George W. Holy Shit! George W. Hart!

Coincidence?
http://www.google.com/search?q=hart+museum+of+mathematics
"""
George W. Hart --- Index
georgehart.com/
‎I spent much of the past four years helping to create and design the Museum of
Mathematics in NY. Yes, I am related to (my daughter) Vi Hart.
"""

That explains a lot.