Tag Archives: 3Blue1Brown

October 17, 2020

Circular Math

Five years ago today I posted, Beautiful Math, which is about Euler’s Identity. In the first part of that post I explored why the Identity is so exquisitely beautiful (to mathematicians, anyway). In the second part, I showed that the Identity is a special case of Euler’s Formula, which relates trigonometry to the complex plane.

Since then I’ve learned how naïve that post was! It wasn’t wrong, but the relationship expressed in Euler’s Formula is fundamental and ubiquitous in science and engineering. It’s particularly important in quantum physics with regard to the infamous Schrödinger equation, but it shows up in many wave-based contexts.

It all hinges on the complex unit circle and the exp(i×π×a) function.

12 Comments | tags: 3Blue1Brown, complex numbers, complex plane, Euler's Formula, Euler's Identity, exponential function, Fourier transform | posted in Math

July 10, 2019

Fourier Curves

By Wyrd Smythe

Fourier Curve 1

Don’t let the title put you off — this is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while. It’s because of math, but there’s no need to get all mathy to enjoy this, you just need to think about clocks. Or even wheels that spin ’round and ’round.

The fun thing is what happens when we connect one wheel to another in a chain of wheels of different sizes and turn rates. If we use the last wheel to trace out a pattern, we get something that resembles the Spirograph toy of old (which worked on a similar principle of turning wheels).

And if we pick the wheel sizes and spin rates just right, we can draw just about any picture we want.

4 Comments | tags: 3Blue1Brown, JPEG, sine wave | posted in Math, Wednesday Wow

March 29, 2019

Sideband #64: Matrix Magic

By Wyrd Smythe

In the last installment I introduced the idea of a transformation matrix — a square matrix that we view as a set of (vertically written) vectors describing a new basis for a transformed space. Points in the original space have the same relationship to the original basis as points in the transformed space have to the transformed basis.

When we left off, I had just introduced the idea of a rotation matrix. Two immediate questions were: How do we create a rotation matrix, and how do we use it. (By extension, how do we create and use any matrix?)

This is where our story resumes…

3 Comments | tags: 3Blue1Brown, column vector, linear algebra, matrix math, matrix multiplication, rotation, unit vector, vectors | posted in Math, Sideband

March 28, 2019

Sideband #63: Matrix Rotation

By Wyrd Smythe

For me, the star attraction of March Mathness is matrix rotation. It’s a new toy (um, tool) for me that’s exciting on two levels: Firstly, it answers key questions I’ve had about rotation, especially with regard to 4D (let alone 3D or easy peasy 2D). Secondly, I’ve never had a handle on matrix math, and thanks to an extraordinary YouTube channel, now I see it in a whole new light.

Literally (and I do mean “literally” literally), I will never look at a matrix the same way again. Knowing how to look at them changes everything. That they turned out to be exactly what I needed to understand rotation makes the whole thing kinda wondrous.

I’m going to try to provide an overview of what I learned and then point to a great set of YouTube videos if you want to learn, too. Continue reading

19 Comments | tags: 3Blue1Brown, column vector, complex numbers, linear algebra, matrix math, matrix multiplication, rotation, trigonometry, unit vector, vectors | posted in Math, Sideband

March 10, 2019

March Mathness

By Wyrd Smythe

Time for math!

I have a special fondness for the month of March. For one thing, it contains the Vernal Equinox — one of my favorite days, because it heralds six months of light. (As a Minnesotan, Spring has much more impact than it did when I lived in Los Angeles.)

March is when the weather elves begin preparing for the April Showers that create May Flowers. It’s when baseball Spring Training is in full swing with the regular season looming (lately, even at the end of the month; this year on the 28th).

It also contains some important birthdays: Albert Einstein (3/14) and Emmy Noether (3/23), to name two, and in their honor I have myriad math posts planned!

8 Comments | tags: 3Blue1Brown, Albert Einstein, complex numbers, Emmy Noether, mathematics, Mathologer, Numberphile, tesseract | posted in Math