Summer of Math Exposition

I liked the energy and visuals, and this video is a great way to see just how insane Ramanujan was. However, I did not enjoy the calculations and endless stream of identities we just had to take at face value. I don’t think this video is suitable for an undergraduate, though it might just not be my cup of tea.

I didn’t know about theta and different elliptic integrals before.

Clearly an insane amount of work went upon the animation.

Interesting idea to do the 1st line of the paper! I also like the hook with the decimals of pi. However, overall this is a fun YouTube video, but I am not sure how much it will help students learning this material. For example, the definitions of the theta functions does not have much advantage over a written proof say. Some of the explanations I think are caught between chairs: like if someone doesnt understand the G_n and g_n being defined in the first line, then I would doubt they can follow some of the more detailed proofs later. So the video overall could benefit from having a more specific target audience in mind. Some of the proofs I did not quite get, maybe they went a bit too fast for me, for example the thing with cancelling out odd powers vs all powers. Overall an entertaining video! But I don’t see a huge amount of value as a teaching tool compared to say a written PDF where advanced students would be able to read the content equally well.

I admire the enthusiasm very much! The video, however, went very fast and especially with such a complicated and involved proof you need to add more moments of reflection in the form of short recaps or maybe flashbacks or even zoom out a little and see where you are on the roadmap

The v-tuber was distracting. I think not having the whole figure on screen would have helped, while still keeping it as a stylistic element.

The voice-over was done quite nicely, and the idea of the video was quite fun. I thought you did a pretty good job balancing using theorems as a black box but also explaining how to use the theorems. I would have liked to see some of the computations a bit slower and with more explanation, though (e.g. the ones at the 7:30 and 10:00 marks).

I think you made a great decision focusing on just one line in Ramanujan’s paper and the video to overall be of a good length.

This video taught me something new so kudos for that. The beginning is a bit abrupt: I have multiple degrees in math and I don’t know the perimeter of an ellipse off the back of my hand. Perhaps a better way would be to start off with a statement that the audience would be familiar with like “the perimeter of a circle is 2πr but for an ellipse there’s no neat formula since the “radius” isn’t constant and varies depending on the angle it is projected from.” Then go into what the formula for the perimeter is and then cases were it permits a “closed form” like in your example. You could have then related it to the fact that the solution for an oscillating pendulum has a similar formula.

Additionally, the character on the left side of your video is distracting and doesn’t contribute to your video in any way. I think your presentation overall deserves some praise but the way you structured it can be confusing at times. I’ve already commented on the beginning but after you introduced the paper by Ramanujan it was all over the fact. Think about the logical sequence of your arguments and how it flows from the viewer’s perspective. Not a bad attempt but some room for improvement in your future videos.

First Impression: Volume is loud and inconsistent.

The exacts of what’s happening within this video can be confusing. The way the topics lead into each other isn’t very clear. The animations are very smooth but didn’t help me much. Intuition is also fairly unclear and is being replaced by steps without much clear meaning behind them.

I thought that seeing a V-tuber in math content was unique and fun.

This may benefit someone with a high level of math knowledge that’s curious on the topic. The topic in of its is very interesting. There could be more reason for why understanding this formula is import in order to motivate the viewer.