Top 10 Youtube Science Channels

YouTube has grown phenomenally as a platform for people to share videos about anything and everything since its inception.It contains homemade videos of funny cats to high quality narratives of the world. It is now helping millions of students around the world to learn science in ways that is different from that of classrooms or textbooks.

Here are some of the best science channels that YouTube has to offer that you must watch if you are interested in science.

Veritasium

The channel run by a PhD holder in Physics education, Derek Muller offers a wide range of enquiries from the fields of science. The channels not only provides a clear explanations of everyday scientific processes but also features the host's travels around the world for science, making the viewer experience entertaining.The quality of the production and the depth in content guarantee this channel's presence in any top 10 lists. The name Veritasium is derived from 'Veritas' which mean truth in Latin by adding a common chemical element suffix 'ium' making the channel 'An element of Truth' and I have to agree the channel is true to its name.

Smarter Everyday 

Smarter Everyday follows Destin Sandlin's exploration of the world using science. Destin runs a very successful YouTube channel along with his full time job as a rocket engineer and his duties to his family of wife and four kids who also makes an appearance or two in the videos.The channel showcases a personal experiences of sciences rather than full crew productions without compromising on quality or uniqueness. His passion for space and flight is visible in his playlists along with 'backward brain bicycle', 'mystery of Prince Rupert's  drops' and 'tattooing in slow motion'.You don't want to miss out on the journeys of a man whose questions are often answered by astronauts up from the International Space Station.

Dnews 

This channel is aimed at answering the everyday questions through scientific methods. Dnews which stands for 'Discovery News' creates contents that lead the viewers to discover something new every week. The videos include "Why do humans have big brains?","Is there a Formula behind good music?","what makes aeroplanes light enough to fly?" and much more.The short and quick answer to the burning questions makes the channel different than many others in this list.

Khan Academy

The mission of this channel being part of the non profit organisation by the same name is to provide a world-class education for anyone, anywhere. The channel contains thousands of video lectures from a wide spectrum of academic subjects. This channel unlike the many in the list do not provide a popularized version of science but clear and concise introduction to complex concepts and feature full subject series as well.Khan academy was responsible for putting its creator Sal Khan in the "100 most influential people" list by Time magazine in 2012.

AsapSCIENCE

The creators Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown brings out the science behind a variety of topics through colourful drawings and animations on a white board.There videos often contains relevant and entertaining take on popular misconceptions and what science has to offer. Their video 'What colour is that dress(SOLVED with SCIENCE)" was highly viewed during the the viral internet phenomenon "The dress". The fact that a same-sex couple having a successful science channel in YouTube is not only an inspiration for the minorities but also shed light on the fact that science is not biased on the grounds of gender, age , nationality or sexual orientation.

Periodic Videos

This University of Nottingham channel is about all things chemistry from chemical elements to cool experiments that will blow your mind.They also have videos about each of the elements on the periodic table.Most of times they feature the opinions and explanations of Sir Martyn Poliakoff and other professors of the university.The videos are by Brady Haran who also have other channels like 'Sixty Symbols', 'Numberphile' and 'Deep sky videos' with emphasis on physics , mathematics and astronomy respectively. All of them are equally brilliant and exciting to watch.

Vsauce

Vsauce provide a very interesting mix of science, philosophy, existentialism and everyday trivia that puts a train of thoughts in the viewer's mind that lasts longer than the videos.The host Michael Stevens usually starts off with a fact or a question and diverge into a wide aspects of the subject matter, which is supported by a very thorough research that has been put into each of his videos.The topics are sometimes simple but very profound. 

TED-Ed

This extension of the TED mission to spread great ideas, utilizes the expertise of scientists,artists,animators and story tellers into making amazing animated videos on literally everything under the sun. The short videos are simple and understandable even to young audiences due to its narrative style. The channel also have a playlist of logical riddles that you can solve at your free time on internet making them fun and educating.

SciShow

Scishow is one of the many channels curated by the very successful YouTube personalities, Green Brothers. The channel puts up a video everyday for your daily dose of science.The channel features quick questions, count downs, science news, interviews and much more making the channel a mix bag of treats. SciShow is definitely one of the famous science channels on YouTube.

MIT OpenCourseWare

This Initiative of Massachusetts Institute of Technology puts all its educational contents from undergraduate , postgraduate online courses free and openly available to the internet and MIT was one of the first universities to do that.The channel provides interested students a gateway to more rigorous method of learning the science through its chronologically arranged lecture series on subjects of STEM(Science, Technology,Engineering and Mathematics).This provides world class education from some of the best minds on the planet , accessible for anyone with a decent internet connection.

The world is a big place full of interesting stuff to be explored and learned but not everyone can travel and have a first hand experience of them. But that limitation can be overcome by a willingness to learn as there are many a ways you can do that through internet.

Giving away too much in a trailer is a bad thing?

Did you see the new Batman V Superman movie? its trailer gave too much away, from wonder women to doomsday to creepy Lex Luthor. Definitely its not good to give away everything. But what about in the scientific education? Is it good to give an overview of the vastness of science in a systematic way starting from school?

The kind of education  which i have gone through is somewhat summarized in this image :

The system tends to emphasis on something for so long and then just talk against it, let it be whether sun rises or not , or whether light is made up of particles or waves. I get  that it is necessary to go through the whole process of learning the way our past generation understood the phenomena in order to put us into right track to pursue our future.But its not difficult to put a little more of continuity into it.

Here is the thing, i am a physics student, so i can only pull examples from the subject.But i suspect it is different in other fields. One of the basics of classical mechanics and in turn most of the modern theories in physics is the concept of Lagrangian and yet i was only introduced to it in my master's course. It maybe likely that the people who decides what to go in the syllabus think its too much for a bachelor's course, but it would not hurt to mention that there exist a more general theory for describing motion than Newtonian mechanics which was taught from 6th grade.Same goes with Tensors and its significance in physics.And then when you reach the next level of the system they throw this things at you as if we know it all.

One of the main reasons for this discontinuity is the dumbing down of these concepts  in order to create a college level course in which  everyone enrolled in the course to have a degree at the end of it.Here in India taking up basic science is a tricky business.In 11th grade,people around you are so excited and happy that you took science over commerce or humanities. then you go join for a bachelors programme, the same people will frown upon you.The whole situation changes when you are doing your masters course,then they treat you will respect and look up to you. It is a funny situation if you think of it , but what is special about bachelors ?The root cause for it is that the majority believes that basic science courses are alternatives for people who could not get into engineering ( I think the logic is " I cannot understand engineering textbooks nor the ones for science", then it must be the next best thing!") or it being a intermediate for some other profession which requires a minimum qualification degree.

This has to be changed and it is changing in a slow but steady pace as it is evident from the number of  people who are genuinely interested in these courses. But the dumbing down still continues and education fails to present the subject in its full rigor and beauty.

Ultimately do we have to completely establish a new system? No. Changing the trend of "Do engineering , think what you want to do after that " should change and the students who end up taking these courses should be interested in it. The work is not done with that , it is also important to show them what it takes to be a scientist and encourage them to pursue science for its beauty and not for the degrees that decorate your walls.

After all , In Thomas Huxley's  words , "Science is simply common sense at its best".