Essence of Linear Algebra by 3Blue1Brown
Hacker ApprovedRanked 3 of 8 educational videos by recommenders
Free YouTube video series that builds geometric intuition for linear algebra through visualizations, helping concepts click for many viewers. Main caveat: the videos are dense, and some say they learned little from them.
Free YouTube video series that builds geometric intuition for linear algebra through visualizations, helping concepts click for many viewers. Main caveat: the videos are dense, and some say they learned little from them.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 94%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 16 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Strong geometric intuition and visualizations
“I urge all my students to watch this series as soon as possible. It's great at giving them a geometrical understanding”
Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “Immersive Linear Algebra Book with Interactive Figures” “3B1B's linear algebra videos for example are wonderful tools for gaining geometric understanding and motivation”
Comment from 4 Oct 2026 in “Math's pedagogical curse – Grant Sanderson [video] (2023)” “It has fantastic visualisations for building intuition and in general is wildly superior to this”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “An Illustrated Introduction to Linear Algebra, Chapter 2: The Dot Product” - Comment from 2 Jul 2026 in “What to Learn to Be a Graphics Programmer”
- Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “Immersive Linear Algebra Book with Interactive Figures”
- Comment from 4 May 2026 in “Fun with polynomials and linear algebra; or, slight abstract nonsense”
Good starting point from scratch
“Start with 3Blue1Brown's Essence of Linear Algebra series”
Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “I don't understand quantum physics (2018)” “Starts from scratch and works up to advanced.”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “LearnVector – Andrew Ng's AI company building one‑to‑one learning experiences” Helps students understand core concepts
“those videos help my students understand the concepts of linear algebra”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “There's never been a better time to go into math (by: 3blue1brown) [video]” “because they learn stuff from them”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “There's never been a better time to go into math (by: 3blue1brown) [video]”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Dense; expects repeated viewings
“his videos are densely packed with information and his expectation is that you will watch the video a few times”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “An Illustrated Introduction to Linear Algebra, Chapter 2: The Dot Product” Some say they teach little
“I'm not sure I've ever really learned anything from one of those videos.”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “An Illustrated Introduction to Linear Algebra, Chapter 2: The Dot Product” “they produce no learning gains for anyone”
Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “There's never been a better time to go into math (by: 3blue1brown) [video]”
Other educational videos people recommend
The four most recommended other educational videos, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andrej Karpathy YouTube videos | 24 | 3 | 89% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Handmade Hero by Casey Muratori | 24 | 10 | 71% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Essence of Linear Algebra by 3Blue1BrownThis page | 16 | 1 | 94% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Ask an Astronaut | 9 | 0 | 100% | 1 | — | — |
| Terence Tao explains 6 essential mathematical concepts | 7 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
18 of the 19 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Start with 3Blue1Brown's Essence of Linear Algebra series”
“those videos help my students understand the concepts of linear algebra”
“because they learn stuff from them”
“what if the videos make me more generally interested in the topic?”
“they produce no learning gains for anyone”
“3b1b has a great series on it in fact which I would consider to be the gold standard.”
“3B1B's linear algebra videos for example are wonderful tools for gaining geometric understanding and motivation”
“Starts from scratch and works up to advanced.”
“I urge all my students to watch this series as soon as possible. It's great at giving them a geometrical understanding”
“has opened my eyes on the intuitive understanding of linear algebra”
“The visualizations made things click in a way my Linear 101 course didn't.”
“conveying the essences in images and pictures instead of words”
“which discusses them thoroughly”
“3Blue1Brown's linear algebra series complement this beautifully”
“I think 3B1B actually did a good job emphasizing this in his video series”
“his videos are densely packed with information and his expectation is that you will watch the video a few times”
“I'm not sure I've ever really learned anything from one of those videos.”
“It has fantastic visualisations for building intuition and in general is wildly superior to this”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.