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THE VIDEO SHELF · cosmic distance ladder

Terence Tao on the cosmic distance ladder

Terence Tao and Grant Sanderson of 3Blue1Brown walk through the cosmic distance ladder, showing how humans measured distances from the Earth to the Moon, Sun, planets and beyond. It includes animations and the history behind each step.

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Why HN readers recommended it

HN recommends it as an excellent explanation of how we know cosmic distances.

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
cosmic distance ladder
Format
explainer
Level
general
HN recommenders in dataset
2
HN mentions in dataset
4
Recommendation years in dataset
2025–2026

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.

  • About geocentrism vs heliocentrism, 3blue1brown has recently released a video [1] that talks about about it. It is about the cosmic distance ladder, but geocentrism is mentioned, and it makes a lot of sense in context. To summarize: heliocentrism was known to the ancient Greeks, …

    GuB-42 on Hacker News · 2025-02
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  • This is so true. There is an awesome Terry Tao / 3blue1brown collaboration that explicates the epistemological basis: Terence Tao on the cosmic distance ladder Pt 1: [VIDEO] Pt 2: [LINK] Commentary and Corrections: [LINK]

    adolph on Hacker News · 2026-02
    In Medieval Monks Wrote over Ancient Star Catalog – Particle Accel Reveals Original

Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.

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