Summer of Math Exposition

On my first watch, this video felt like it was made in an alternate timeline and I’ve accidentally stumbled across it. I don’t judge all of the work that has gone into this video behind the scenes, although I’m sure it has been a lot. I can only review the final product. The video’s quality is okay, but it could be a lot better. The topic is worthwhile, but after watching the video two times I still don’t properly understand it. Compared to some of the incredible videos I’ve seen last year and how well the topic could be covered, you can do a lot better.

Motivation: Prime numbers are always of interest to me. And I understand why you would choose them as a topic.

Clarity: It’s really difficult to follow the explanation because of how chaotic the visuals are. Many times the visuals look cut off, misaligned or otherwise unnatural. I have to actively look for what I’m supposed to be looking at, which isn’t ideal. The video covers a lot of information in 15 minutes, and it could have benefited from either being longer and/or having a bit more exposition/explanation. Some visual elements of the video are way too small, some are way too big, and one is even only available in Arabic. The pace is also a bit fast for the complexity of the topic. Honestly, after watching the video I just have more questions than before.

Novelty: Even after watching the video a second time, I fail to see what it adds to the overall topic (apart from simple explanation). Of course, this is mainly because I’m a layman on this topic. But a good video explains a topic in a way that even laymen can learn a few useful insights.

Memorability: It’s amusing how quirky some of the visuals can look. It’s definitely apparent how much time and effort it took you to make the spreadsheets.

My advice for future videos is to introduce and explain the visuals more intentionally and thoroughly. Make sure that the viewer has enough reference points. Implement frequent pauses, for example, so viewers can catch up with their own thoughts without having to pause the video and search for tiny details. Think about what the viewer actually has to see in order to understand a given topic. Sometimes less is more.

Please see my review not as negative feedback, but rather constructive criticism.

It might work better to make it easier to follow for the audience; e.g. you might have an introduction section etc.. The voiceover often felt rushed and the use of tables unjustified.

A bit heavy on the eyes and ears. Visible lack of polish. Making a great YouTube video is very hard though. Still better than most!

Maybe I’m missing some of the context, but I am strugling to understand what the mathematical claims are here.

As far as I can tell, the “probability columns” seem to be the possible remainders that share no factor with the table size, so their number is Euler’s \varphi(n). And, constructing the 30, 210, 2310, etc. tables by repeating the previous pattern and removing multiples of the next prime is in a way the sieve construction maybe ?

I think I’d have to delve deeper into your paper to understand more, but it seems that would take a whole lot of time. The goal of the competition is to make things as approachable as possible however, so I think I should give a lower rating in this case.

I appreciate the great effort, and I hope you keep developing the idea.

Maybe there is something here, but it’s not clear to me. I would recommend explaining something considerably simpler first, and refining based on that.

The presentation was very bare bones and wasn’t too visually appealing. I bet you two did your best and talked about something truly interesting, but I found myself losing interest. I’m sorry.

I applaud your interest in prime numbers and the intensity of your research. However, this video makes very bold claims, the arguments it presents are not explained particularly well— terminology is frequently introduced without definition, and it is unclear when evidence provided is empirical versus when it is deductive, a critical distinction in the mathematical literature. I was able to nail down a few of the arguments carefully, but they were unfortunately not the extraordinary evidence needed to support claims of this magnitude.