Essence of linear algebra preview
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN repeatedly recommends the series as the best intuition-first, visual introduction to linear algebra and a benchmark for clear math explanation.
What it is
A five-minute preview of 3Blue1Brown's Essence of Linear Algebra series, which uses animation to build geometric intuition for topics from a standard linear algebra course.
Recommended by 11 HN commenters across 7 different months, 2016 to 2018.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec wyc · 2017-01 · on “How a Kalman filter works, in pictures (2015)”
Wow, this lecturer is great! I think this is the most intuitive explanation of Kalman filters I've seen yet. I've seen other lecturers try to quickly jump into state space and lose students with big matrices. I would have paid good money for this if I wasn't already familiar with the material. The clarity is up there with The Essence of Linear Algebra: [this video] Trading math videos on the Internet--definitely nerds.
Strong rec Double_Cast · 2017-04 · on “No bullshit guide to linear algebra – v2”
Fror a high-level overview of linear algebra, 3Blue1Brown's youtube series I cannot recommend highly enough. [this video]
Strong rec makmanalp · 2017-09 · on “Special Linear Systems and Cholesky Factorization for Programmers”
For linear algebra basics, I also especially recommend 3Blue1Brown's youtube channel and his "Essence of" series: [this video] I've never seen the material presented more clearly - it's completely visual and focused on building intuition first.
Strong rec hexane360 · 2017-12 · on “Down with Determinants (1995)”
If anyone's looking for a (high level) overview of linear algebra, I'd highly recommend 3blue1brown's video series: [this video] It's mostly graphical, and is really helpful in forming and cementing an intuition for linear algebra.
Strong rec dvddgld · 2018-03 · on “Ask HN: How to self-learn math?”
Two quick things I can recommend without hesitation, which focus on an intuitive understanding of concepts: 1. Essence of Linear Algebra mini-series - [this video] 2. Better Explained website - [LINK] YouTube has a lot of high quality math content, it definitely helped through university. It's also worth mentioning the Stanford U courses. The main takeaway I have for you is learn the concepts intuitively first, then spend the time to play around with them on paper until they sink in. Some things will be easy, some will be frustrating, much like programming you will walk away from a frustrating problem and have an epiphany while doing something completely different. All the best and have fun!
Recommends c3534l · 2016-11 · on “Matrix Multiplication”
It at least cuts down on the amount of time you have to explain the mechanics of it. This is more intuitive to memorize than an algorithm composed of bullet-point instructions. For intuition, I highly recommend [this video] - I think both the intuition and practicing the details should be learned.
Recommends espeed · 2017-02 · on “Why does e to pi i equal -1? (2015) [video]”
See the "Essence of Linear Algebra" (visualized) by the same author -- it should give you more intuition into the nature of the transformations: Essence of Linear Algebra [this video]
Recommends espeed · 2017-02 · on “Big Picture of Calculus (2010) [video]”
Have you seen the Essence of Linear Algebra video series posted to HN a few days ago? Seeing the geometric transformations animated gives you intuition hard to develop otherwise: Essence of Linear Algebra (visualized) [this video]