THE VIDEO SHELF · calculus intuition
The essence of calculus
The first video of 3Blue1Brown's Essence of Calculus series, which builds toward integrals, derivatives, and the fundamental theorem of calculus from a simple geometry question. It aims to make viewers feel they could have invented calculus themselves.
Why HN readers recommended it
A staple recommendation for anyone learning math, praised for visual intuition that makes memorized formulas make sense.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- 3Blue1Brown
- Topic
- calculus intuition
- Format
- course
- Level
- intro
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 10
- HN mentions in dataset
- 11
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2017–2025
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
Grant (the 3Blue1Brown guy) has an uncanny ability to explain difficult concepts and the fundamental intuition behind them. In many of his videos, he explains topics from the perspective of a person inventing that topic (such as in his first Calculus video [1]). I can't …
willurd on Hacker News · 2018-05
In Ask HN: How do I learn math/physics in my thirties?I know of no better way to both learn, truly understand, and enjoy calculus than the visual approach of 3Blue1Brown in the Calculus series of videos: [VIDEO]
gibsonf1 on Hacker News · 2019-07
In Calculus for Beginners and Artists (2003)I took all the advanced math classes available to me in high school. This was despite me hating school and being a terrible student. But I enjoyed math as puzzles to solve. This was until I got into calculus. The teacher didn't have a strong …
tstrimple on Hacker News · 2023-06
In What I Learned from Two Years of Teaching High School CS
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.