Summer of Math Exposition

Nice visuals, nice motivation, nice story. Not so easy to follow. The black screens are irritating.

I like the way the creator shows their thought process; going for the simplest thing and showing how it fails and how to address it, mirroring more or less how new math gets invented. I would have appreciated more comment on why the fourth dimension is necessary. Also, the switch back and forth between spheres rotating and arrows on axes and circles detracts from how compelling the visuals could be; my favorite parts were always the ones that involved showing the actual 3d-rotation’s effect on the sphere, since that’s our final goal. The visuals could use some more polish and there were moments in the video where either the visual or the audio fully cut out; some better planning and/or background music/SFX could’ve been in order (but that is more of a nitpick).

Motivation 2.5/3 Clarity 1.75/3 Novelty 2/3

The animations were fine, although not amazing. Parts of the video felt a bit rushed (the middle). I didn’t feel like the hook worked. Many students will watch and think, “No, I’ve never used that software” or “I don’t know what he’s talking about.” and click away. I’m also not sure this is high school level (at least not for typical students in a typical high school).

Heh, love that moment just before chapter four. Oh I have felt that way so many times! “Finally! … huh.”

This video is a pretty good introduction to quaternions (I know that I’ve always gotten confused by them in the past, and I think I understand them a little better now). I think that I would avoid having nothing on the screen while you are speaking. For me it was a little distracting, I think that a lot of people are aided by having something to follow along with on the screen. I think that this was good to introduce people to the topic, and also pointed to another source for further learning.

This may be a level issue, but I was lost when I watched this video, and I do know what complex numbers are and a complex plane is. I also have used a quaternion LLEulerRot in lsl script in Second Life to make furniture on which my avie can sit and lay. The explanation went too fast. The graphics were beautiful, but it still went too fast for someone like me. Maybe there is an audience for this video out there. I am not it.

That was fun!

The start is quite sudden for people not familiar with 3D software. That could be smoother/slower.

And the fact that rotations in 4D have a “plane of rotation” and sin/cos in the orthogonal direction is very much non-obvious or intuitive. Not even for many “full” mathematicians, certainly not for highschoolers.