My favorite educational Youtubers in no particular order

I thought I’d share some of my favorite educational Youtubers and my favorite videos from them. All these videos blew my mind in one way or another. Starting with...

Vsauce

The guy who got me into educational Youtube. He excitedly talks about all sorts of subjects, constantly flowing from tangent to tangent in way that always makes me laugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3teflb1QNN4

Veritasium

Science, mostly physics, but also math, statistics, psychology, engineering, too many subjects to name. He’s got to be my favorite Youtube educator, and I won’t miss a video. He’s one of the biggest names out there, with production effort through the roof. I link this video because it completely changed my perspective on electromagnetism. It also sparked criticism, but he embraced it perfectly in a follow-up video that I also totally recommend. That's how you do science.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHIhgxav9LY

Tom scott

The legend. He’s always traveling around to show you something awesome and obscure with fantastic witty delivery. This is my favorite one explaining sound of TV shows and advertisements, and he slips in the most creative sponsored ad I’ve ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is_wu0VRIqQ

Steve Mould

Technology. If you like Tom Scott, you’ll like Steve Mould. He likes to cover the extremely fascinating science behind why things work. It was hard to choose one, but this one on piezoelectrics really stuck with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcJXA8IqYl8

Up and Atom

Math. Lots of math. And physics and some engineering. Watch this one on nuclear fusion if you want to feel better about the future (it does still manage your expectations... yes, we’re still a long way away from fusion.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5RxUW7VC-A

Practical Engineering

Civil Engineering. Covers a lot of construction mega-projects, the design of everyday public infrastructure, and principles of civil engineering. Here’s an episode he did with Up and Atom on the same nuclear fusion reactor. The design that goes into just the structure surrounding the reactor is insane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD3dMzv1vIQ

Science Asylum

Physics. Great entertaining delivery on complex subjects with some nerdy humor. This is my favorite video, and the best video on a topic I don’t think we think about enough: how were all the elements made? Why does chemistry exist? I’ve watched it multiple times to really sink it in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lInXZ6I3u_I

PBS SpaceTime

Highly complex theoretical physics. If you want to dig into quantum mechanics, this is the best place to go, though I often struggle to keep up. This video is a lot easier to understand, and it totally changed the way I think about matter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=184eP_KuXek

ScienceClic English

Physics. Speaking of complex topics, I put this video on here, not because I watch this channel a lot, but because this video FINALLY made me understand general relativity. I guess after reading/watching so many explanations, this was the one that worked for my brain, so maybe it’ll work for you too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qQheJn-FHc

Fermilab

Physics. He gives fantastic, clear explanations of more complex topics. This one is on refraction. I always was confused about how light apparently slows down in air/glass/water, but photons are massless and should travel at the speed of light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUjt36SD3h8

Arvin Ash

Physics. His videos are very similar to Fermilab. He’s a professor professoring to you in a very clear way. There are too many good videos to choose from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PbcR8SRq0E

Anton Petrov

Astronomy, mostly, but also covers biology, and a lot of emerging science. When choosing a video from this guy I didn’t realize how many freaking videos he makes. This one, nevertheless, I think stands out because I didn’t realize our solar system was unique.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tju7EaSfmM

Astrum

Astronomy. He makes a lot of videos on the planets and other celestial bodies, covering their unique features with flowery language instead of direct scientific language. Good if you just want to relax and reminisce about the times you watched Nova. Here’s quite an interesting video on how difficult orbital mechanics make it to travel to Mercury.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MwGXzKjFfY

Be Smart

A PBS channel, and they cover all sorts of miscellaneous things. This is a great one on how a need for better naval navigation led to the invention of accurate clocks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o3_w0Ypb78

SciShow

A PBS channel that covers about every science topic you can imagine. Also they have Hank Green. Out of all their videos, this one really stuck with me. It’s insane to think about how much the moon contributes to our planet being habitable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rEiywnAra0

Crash Course

Just about everything. I chose a history video. It’s got John Green, so that’s nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E9WU9TGrec&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtMwmepBjTSG593eG7ObzO7s

History Matters

History. While I choose Youtubers who don’t pad their videos, this one takes the cake. Each video is a 3 min speedrun on a topic, filled with hilarious animations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1rzd3eG7ps

Rob Words

Linguistics. One day I learned that Haitian Creole was made from a mix of languages, and thought that was so fascinating. But then I learned that this happens to every language, especially English. It’s actually more French and Latin than it is English. In fact, our alphabet is Latin, but it didn't used to be. Rob Words dives into the history of language and it’s super cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4npuVmGxXuk

Stephan Milo

Anthropology. He makes long videos of him talking and reviewing evidence of prehistoric peoples. This is my favorite episode about genetic evidence of contact between polynesians and native South Americans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycRcWK7pMoM

Geology Hub

Geology. His channel looks at obscure geologic features on the Earth and explains how they formed. The videos are quick and to the point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1IpW85EZkk

Atlas Pro

Geography. The channel examines obscure places, how they came to be the way they are, and how geography can drive where people and animals live. The video that blew my mind the most is this one, that covers the origin of different fruits. It’s amazing that nearly none of the food we eat looks like it did when we were hunter gatherers; humans deliberately bred it, and a LOT of this breeding happened in Mesopotamia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu6Y-gTZtzc

Howtown

A channel dedicated to explaining how we know stuff in science. I’m forever fascinated with plate tectonics, and this my favorite video of theirs explaining the evidence of how we know where the continents used to be located. Also check out their video on zircon dating; it’s how we know how old rocks are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1hOdm0RJlY

PBS Eons

Another PBS show, dedicated to geology, anthropology, acheology, and the origin of life. There are so many videos to choose from, but this one about how blood evolved is truly fascinating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdjN4ddnl2E

Chubbyemu

A doctor covers an obscure medical case in each episode, usually relating to toxicology. He throws in some hilarious actors and catch phrases to make it entertaining while at the same time educational.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmibYliBOsE&t=5s

Artem Kirsanov

Advanced neuroscience. Pretty cool stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV-EMA5g288

Kurzgesagt

Physics, astronomy, biology, weirdness. Their videos on physics and biology are great, but they started dabbling in videos that are way more speculative than informative, and that’s not really my thing. Nevertheless, this video did blow my mind: why is the sky black at night? This is where I learned about the cosmic event horizon at causes the edge to our observable universe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzkD5SeuwzM

Nilered / Nileblue

Chemistry. This guy has two channels where he makes things with chemistry... like taking the polystyrene from styrofoam cups to make the synthetic flavor of cinnamon... because why not. I have no idea how he affords all his lab equipment. His videos are long and fun, and he shows you every step of experimentation. Here he is making aerogel, and I put this on here because you actually get to SEE a supercritical fluid. It’s incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0HfmYBlF8g

Reactions

Chemistry. They go in depth into the chemical reactions of our modern life. They also made the best explanation of greenhouse gases that I’ve seen so far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cimZGu5GadQ

Stated Clearly

Biology. This channel puts a lot of focus into the origin of life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrEVw_jeeWU

Clockwork

Biochemistry. PBS Spacetime gets a reputation for covering extremely complex stuff, but I think this one might have it beat. It goes over the exact chemical pathways that make life function with amazing animations. My special brand of neurodivergence requires me to understand every step of a given process, even knowing that I’ll forget the details immediately afterword. If that sounds like you, then you might enjoy watching the science of cell division, and what it has to do with aging.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmm81lLhvUY

There are many more great Youtubers out there, so obviously I missed some of your favorites. These are just mine. Cheers!