Math in 60 Seconds

YouTube changed the way we learn mathematics, giving everyone the opportunity to share their thoughts on a particular topic. At this point, the sheer volume of mathematical ideas available on the platform can be a bit overwhelming. There isn’t enough time in a life span to consume all the available math content.

More recently, TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts have changed the game again. These platforms encourage content creators to fit their ideas into 60-second clips. As younger generations rely heavily on these types of videos for many of their daily needs, we need to have meaningful videos designed with the purpose of inspiring viewers to learn and explore mathematical ideas in under 60 seconds. Can math survive the push to short-form video, or will the subject be drowned out by videos of people dancing and those featuring cute animals?

Luckily, there are people attempting to bring mathematics to the masses in short video formats. I reached out to three prominent science communicators and content creators—Toby Hendy, Howie Hua, and Ayliean MacDonald—to ask them about their experiences creating short-form content. Each has built a library of such content on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and/or Twitter/X. My short-form conversations with them, edited for length and clarity, follow.

Toby Hendy

Australian science communicator Toby Hendy created the YouTube channel Tibees way back in 2006 and uploaded her first video in 2011. She studied mathematics and physics at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and the Australian National University. She left academia in 2019 to pursue her career as a science communicator.

In the past 12 years, she has amassed more than 1.2 million subscribers and nearly 160 million views. Her distinctive style includes “exam unboxing” videos, history videos, and relaxing “joy of math” videos inspired by the painter and TV host Bob Ross. Hendy recently began including short-form content on her YouTube channel and on TikTok (where she has more than 200,000 subscribers).

Toby graciously agreed to speak with me about her success as a science communicator and her use of shorts.

Math Horizons: You have a popular YouTube channel with lots of great long-form content. What made you start that channel, and why have you expanded to short-form content more recently?

Toby Hendy: My journey on YouTube started as a viewer. I have enjoyed watching many videos on YouTube over the years and some of these videos opened my eyes to new fields of maths or provided inspiration for my own studies. I started uploading my own videos to be a part of this community and to have a place to share my ideas and insights.

I expanded to short-form videos because I could see the growing popularity of platforms like TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Short-form videos provide a unique challenge of capturing the attention of and providing value to a viewer, all within 60 seconds.

MH: How do you think short-form content can be helpful for current undergraduate-level mathematicians?

TH: Whilst I wouldn’t recommend trying to learn new maths solely from short-form videos, I think they can do a great job of providing context and motivation for maths that students may be learning elsewhere, including in the classroom.

I have found that the process of making short videos has motivated me to dig deeper into topics that I want to cover and to improve my own understanding. In this way these types of videos can provide a useful testing ground for one’s ability to explain complex ideas.

MH: What math-themed short-form video has been your most popular, successful, or viral?

TH: My most popular one is called “No privacy in the 4th dimension” (youtube.com/shorts/VwofJ3wkzn8) and has 8.4 million views across YouTube and TikTok. In it, I steal gems from the safe of a two-dimensional creature and mention that four-dimensional creatures may likewise be able to enter locked rooms in our three-dimensional world.

MH: Why do you think this had such success?

TH: Thinking about dimensions is an idea that has long captivated people, and including a fictional character helped to provide a storytelling element. I was delighted to see many viewers create their own videos responding to mine, advocating on behalf of the two-dimensional creature. Receiving this kind of community engagement makes the video creation process more fun.

MH: Which of your math-themed, short-form videos is your personal favorite and why?

TH: I’m fond of all of my videos that explore concepts of higher dimensions because they have allowed me to be creative with props and storytelling.

MH: Is your answer different if I include your long-form videos?

TH: My long-form videos cover different topics, and each one is much more in-depth. My favorite is my short film “Finding X” (youtu.be/MGp77CmhhLw).

MH: Do you have advice for undergraduate-level readers who may be interested in social media, content creation, or mathematics communication?

TH: Right now, I think it’s easier to get started growing an audience with short-form content rather than long-form. The barrier to entry feels lower, and the time commitment for each video is generally less. Growing on social media often takes a lot of experimentation at the beginning, so being able to try more ideas quickly will increase the chances of landing on a successful format.

As for advice, I would encourage anyone who wants to make content for, say, YouTube, to spend time watching what others are doing on the platform. This will be the best way to get an idea of what people want to watch and what the community values.

MH: Will you keep up with your online content creation, including YouTube Shorts?

TH: Yes! I am currently uploading short-form videos weekly and long-form videos monthly. I am also in the process of turning my video series on dimensions into a book to release in 2024. I am excited to continue making videos and, in general, to be part of a community that loves learning.

Howie Hua

Howie Hua teaches mathematics at Fresno State in California to future elementary school teachers. In 2019, he was recognized as an Outstanding Lecturer in the College of Sciences and Math at his university.

He has been posting short-form videos and other content on Twitter/X since 2016 and on TikTok since 2020. He currently has more than 80,000 followers on TikTok and nearly 85,000 on X. Most of his videos feature him enthusiastically investigating some mathematical idea (typically suitable even at the elementary level) on a whiteboard. Although anything is game, he has a number of “mental math Monday” videos asking viewers to describe how they compute something in their head, and he often features math jokes or memes.

I caught up with Howie to discuss his journey creating content as a hobby connected to his work as a college instructor.

Math Horizons: You have a large following on Twitter/X and a relatively large following on TikTok. How, and why, did you get started with social media and short-form content?

Howie Hua: I started with social media for two reasons. First, I am quite sentimental and hate things ending, so I wanted to still teach math to past students. I tell each of my students that they can continue to learn math from me by following me on social media. Second, I maintain these accounts because I want to help market math as a fun and accessible subject.

MH: Do you prefer X or TikTok as a platform?

HH: I started on Twitter and that has been more of my “home” social media. I find it easier to make friends and build relationships there, probably because there are more teachers on Twitter (at least from what I’ve seen).

MH: How do you think short-form content can be helpful for current undergraduate-level mathematicians?

HH: Short-form content can engage viewers in thinking about higher level mathematics. For instance, @wallacestem or @andymath post intriguing college-level math content. I also think that undergraduate-level learners could benefit from trying to make short videos, helping them understand what they do and don’t know.

MH: What math-themed short-form video has been your most popular or successful?

HH: One of my most popular videos features me sharing that we can subtract two numbers from left to right (tiktok.com/t/ZT8s5VgLt). For example, with 93 – 26, let’s subtract left to right: 9 – 2 = 7 and 3 – 6 is –3. This isn’t 7 – 3; it’s 70 – 3, which is 67. I learned about this process from James Tanton, and I wanted to share how cool it is.

MH: Why do you think this had such success?

HH: I think the video received a lot of traction because the technique feels like a “math hack.” People like learning different ways to answer various problems.

MH: Which of your math-themed, short-form videos is your personal favorite and why?

HH: Perhaps my favorite video is where I show one way to visualize the classic formula $x^2-y^2=(x-y)(x+y)$ (tiktok.com/t/ZT8s5mV3r). I didn’t realize until maybe a year ago that the term “difference of squares” literally means “what’s the difference between these two squares?” I hope the geometric reasoning in that video helps other people see why the formula $x^2-y^2=(x-y)(x+y)$ must be true, relying on visual intuition.

MH: Do you have advice for undergraduate-level readers who may be interested in social media, content creation, or mathematics communication?

HH: Here are two tips that I think might be helpful. First, a video made is a video made. One video can take several hours to make, from start to finish, and sometimes the effort doesn’t feel worth it. But a video made is a video made. You can repost it in a couple months and maybe it will reach more people next time. And regardless of how many people you reach, it’s still great if it helps even one person!

Second, absolutely do NOT let the algorithm determine how you feel about your content. The algorithm is so random. Sometimes I catch myself being persuaded by how good my video is because of how well it does on social media, but you need to remember that you will constantly suffer if you let these types of things—that you cannot control—control your emotions.

MH: Will you keep up with your online content creation, including short-form videos?

HH: I definitely plan to continue to share what’s on my mind, whether it’s related to K–12 or college-level math, and I hope to constantly improve the quality of my videos. Access to math is important, and I believe I can help people feel more confident in their mathematical abilities.

Ayliean MacDonald

Ayliean MacDonald currently serves as a community mathematician for Math City in the UK. Before that, she worked as a math teacher in Scotland. She is also a math artist and started posting on YouTube in 2016. More recently, she has found success on both Twitter/X and TikTok, with numerous million-view videos and nearly 100,000 subscribers on TikTok. Although she covers a variety of topics, she loves art, fractals, and patterns. Those lend themselves well to her time-lapse-style videos, where she draws or creates intricate, detailed mathematical structures over many hours but shows the process in 60 seconds. Ayliean loves to talk about anything math related with anyone who will listen and helps expand the reach of mathematical ideas.

Ayliean was kind enough to share some of the details of her “weird” journey thus far.

Math Horizons: What made you start creating math videos and online content?

Ayliean MacDonald: I’ve always enjoyed creating videos and video editing. When I was younger, I made short animations using MS Paint, little sketches with my friends, low-budget nature documentaries, and cringey vlogs.

I started making maths videos on YouTube early in my teaching career. Chris Smith, an amazing Scottish maths teacher, produced a weekly newsletter with a puzzle in it. Those videos inspired me to start a weekly puzzle video—I kept that up for about 4 weeks (his newsletter has been going for over 10 years now!).

At some point, I came across the Hilbert curve, which I had never learned about in school or university. I drew a large Hilbert curve and time-lapsed the process (tiktok.com/t/ZT8bgm52X). I think this video did well because it is an easy entry point for mathematical appreciation; you maybe know there’s some maths to it, but you don’t need to fully understand the maths to enjoy the visuals.

Halloween rolled round and I released a weird, theatrical video about ways to derive Pi from a pumpkin (get it?! oh ho ho), which helped me not take myself too seriously. A few months later I got my first mathematical tattoo and life kept getting weirder, and more awesome, from there.

MH: What math-themed video has been your most popular or successful?

AM: If you’re judging by views, the top three include one about the aperiodic monotile (tiktok.com/t/ZT8bbbJjX), one about my digon tattoo, and my “Frafractalals” video entry to the Bridges Math Art film festival.

MH: Why do you think the monotile video had such success?

AM: Probably because of a first move advantage. The paper dropped, and I cleared my schedule to put in about a week’s worth of work in two days to get the video out quickly. There are some things I would change about it, and some I could have done better, but after seeing the deluge of surface-level reporting from nonmathematicians, I am glad I produced this video almost immediately to help bridge the gap between folk who can read the paper and folk who are interested but don’t have a deep maths background.

MH: Which of your math-themed, short-form videos is your personal favorite and why?

AM: My favorite videos are always artsy and weird; they typically don’t go down that well! I’m quite proud of my “Musical Tower of Hanoi” (tiktok.com/t/ZT8bgNKhD). I have two different versions and Numberphile created a long-form video about it featuring me as well. I enjoy that there are so many paths you can go down with the Tower of Hanoi, and by making it musical you can experience maths with different senses. It’s even better that it results in a Sierpinski triangle!

Solution to puzzle 1 on page 2

MH: How long does it take you to create your time-lapse videos?

AM: The actual drawing parts have taken anywhere from a few hours to 118 hours. But I find solace in the flow state of obsessive art; the drawing is the fun bit! I probably think about the ideas and how to make them work in the back of my mind for a couple of weeks before drawing. The actual editing only takes seconds!

MH: Do you have advice for undergraduate-level readers who may be interested in social media, content creation, or mathematics communication?

AM: Make videos that you want to watch, and that you enjoy creating—that way if nobody watches them, then it’s no loss! Second, views and likes are not a great measure of quality. We live by the whim of the algorithm, so don’t be disheartened if you make a great video and it doesn’t perform well. The next day you’ll make a nothingburger video that inexplicably gets 500K views.

Finally, I have a personal policy to not engage with comments to which I have a negative emotional reaction—I don’t feed the trolls. This policy has served me well and lets me focus on the overwhelming majority of nice comments that my fellow maths nerds leave.

MH: Will you keep up with your online content creation, including short-form videos?

AM: I find myself in a perpetual cycle of saying I’m going to start a regular schedule, getting two weeks in, and then completely failing. My energy levels are rather sinusoidal, so I ride the wave when it’s good! I would absolutely love to put out more stuff on a regular schedule. My brain is filled with ideas, but I think keeping to a tight schedule would only result in a drop in quality.

Still, making videos and sharing my love of maths brings me so much joy. I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do with my time.●

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tom Edgar

Tom Edgar is the editor of Math Horizons. He has been experimenting with his own short videos on both YouTube and Instagram as @mathvisualproofs.