Home › Topics › Physics, Space & Chemistry
Physics & space (other): videos Hacker News recommends
Other physics and space topics: science history, philosophy of physics, metrology and units, miscellaneous science lectures. Below: every video in this topic that at least three HN users linked with real commentary, in at least three different months (9 explainers, 1 lecture, 1 demo), best-scored first, with the comments on each video page.
- 9 HN recommenders 7 months 2021–2026HN recommends it as a well-told chase of a weird fact that lands a rare interview with Lovelock at age 101.
- 5 HN recommenders 6 months 2018–2022HN commenters point to it as a lucid, general-audience lecture that shows how wrong common conceptions of time are, often in threads on entropy and the arrow of time.
- 6 HN recommenders 4 months 2013–2018Recommended in kilogram-redefinition threads as a clear, short explainer of the Avogadro and Planck approaches.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2024Praised as an excellent, accessible account of why the kilogram's definition changed, in redefinition threads.
- 6 HN recommenders 4 months 2023–2026Whenever NIST's pricey peanut butter or reference materials come up, commenters point to this as the clear explanation of why they exist.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2022–2023Recommended as a thoughtful, enjoyable 45-minute dive into measurement and the appreciation of precision.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2024–2026Loved for its zoom-out tour of physical scales and recommended alongside other paper-size and scale-of-the-universe discussions.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2011–2019HN people link it as the simple go-to explanation of DST and of how irregular time zone rules complicate scheduling.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2018–2023Used to illustrate that the standard targets consistency rather than taste, and to discuss what standardization is for.
- cited 6× 0 months 2019–2026D DjSadhu · demoHN mostly cites it as the closest available visualization of the Earth's path through space, with caveats that it is exaggerated and inaccurate.
- cited 5× 0 months 2017–2022HN commenters link it to show that the US is effectively metric because its customary units are defined from SI.
Questions
What is the most recommended physics & space (other) video on Hacker News?
I promise this story about microwaves is interesting. by Tom Scott: HN recommends it as a well-told chase of a weird fact that lands a rare interview with Lovelock at age 101.
How is this physics & space (other) list ranked?
By HackerTube's score: the number of distinct months in which an HN comment recommended the video, plus half a point for every month with a strong recommendation. One viral thread counts less than steady recommendations over years.
Where do the videos come from?
From every Hacker News comment between 2007 and 2026 that linked a YouTube video, labeled by an AI model as a recommendation, a citation, a joke or a criticism. The list is published by HackerTube under ODC-By 1.0; this edition adds indexable pages and the comment context.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.