# 3Blue1Brown

96 Hacker News commenters recommended 3Blue1Brown and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** A math video channel whose visualizations make math concepts, including neural networks, intuitive and beautiful, though critics say viewers retain little without rigor, exercises or structure.

## Why people recommend it

- Intuitive visual explanations of concepts (8 comments): "If you don't find the way he presents e.g. linear algebra intuitive I think our brains must work fundamentally differently." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50146118)) "his course provided a visual representation for the fundamental operations and properties" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47995875)) "I love 3Blue1Brown's videos and when I watch them I feel like I really get a concept." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47281230))
- Shows the beauty of math (5 comments): "makes videos that shows you the beauty in math without having to understand it really" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48086006)) "3Blue1Brown does an amazing job of making math interesting to learn in itself." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50146768)) "They have all made extremely high quality, and often profound videos." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46388246))
- Great intro to neural networks (4 comments): "has a good video series which covers the overall concept of LLM vectors in machine learning" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45841109)) "You can get a good idea of the foundation of the system with some 3blue1brown videos." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49311390)) "1blue3brown also has a few great videos about transformer and how they work" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46668618))
- Helped with school and degrees (3 comments): "I'm almost certain I wouldn't have pushed through and gotten a degree without the internet (3b1b and Khan Academy in particular)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49002989)) "algorhythm has done wonders from my mathmatical ability by directing me to so much numberphile and 3Blue1Brown" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48639419)) "helped me quite a bit when I needed to learn calculus ahead of school curriculum" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49590052))

## What people warn about

- Little retained or actually learned (6 comments): "But I'm not sure I've ever really learned anything from one of those videos." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45802341)) "It's actually not that great a teaching tool (it's truly great at what it is for, which is (a) appreciation and motivation" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47432857)) "I don't think that I retained anything useful from any of it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47978869))
- Avoids rigor and formalism (3 comments): "The videos are great, but by avoiding formalism, they are at least for me harder to understand than traditional sources." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46134657)) "they do not go as deep into the mathematics, they avoid some of the harder to understand complexities and abstractions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46134269)) "who has super cool visualizations, but also isn't rigorous enough to apply it to complicated problems" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47498596))
- No exercises or systematic progression (3 comments): "I can second 3blue1brown as intro, but anything practical needs practise." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46084919)) "There's no systematic progression to teach from A to Z." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49753471)) "They don't include exercise sets." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49096939))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Practical Engineering](https://hackerapproved.com/p/practical-engineering-youtube-channel.md): 12 recommend
- [System Crafters](https://hackerapproved.com/p/system-crafters.md): 9 recommend
- [MangoJelly YouTube channel](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mangojelly-youtube-channel.md): 8 recommend
- [Thought Emporium YouTube channel](https://hackerapproved.com/p/thought-emporium-youtube-channel.md): 6 recommend
- [Northwest Repair YouTube channel](https://hackerapproved.com/p/northwest-repair-youtube-channel.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "3Blue1Brown", https://hackerapproved.com/p/3blue1brown/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).