Victoria Hart (born 1988), commonly known as Vi Hart (), is an American mathematician and YouTuber. They describe themselves as a "recreational mathemusician" and are well-known for creating mathematical videos on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

. Hart founded the virtual reality research group eleVR and has co-authored several research papers on

computational geometry Computational geometry is a branch of computer science devoted to the study of algorithms which can be stated in terms of geometry. Some purely geometrical problems arise out of the study of computational geometric algorithms, and such problems ar ...

and the

mathematics of paper folding The discipline of origami or paper folding has received a considerable amount of mathematical study. Fields of interest include a given paper model's flat-foldability (whether the model can be flattened without damaging it), and the use of paper f ...

. Together with another YouTube mathematics popularizer,

Matt Parker Matthew Thomas Parker (born 22 December 1980) is an Australian recreational mathematician, author, comedian, YouTube personality and science communicator based in the United Kingdom. His book ''Humble Pi'' was the first maths book in the UK to ...

, Hart won the 2018 Communications Award of the

Joint Policy Board for Mathematics The Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) consists of the American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. The Board has near ...

for "entertaining, thought-provoking mathematics and music videos on YouTube that explain mathematical concepts through doodles".

Early life and education

Hart is the child of mathematical sculptor

George W. Hart George William Hart (born 1955) is an American sculptor and geometer. Before retiring, he was an associate professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University in New York City and then an interdepartmental research professor at Stony B ...

, and received a degree in music at

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...

. Hart identifies as "gender agnostic"; in a video released in 2015, they spoke about their lack of gender identity—including lacking

non-binary Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...

identities such as ''agender''—and their attitude to gendered terms such as pronouns as a "linguistic game" that they were not interested in playing. They indicated that they have no preference and do not care which pronouns they are called by.

Career

Hart's career as a mathematics popularizer began in 2010 with a video series about "doodling in math class". After these

recreational mathematics Recreational mathematics is mathematics carried out for recreation (entertainment) rather than as a strictly research and application-based professional activity or as a part of a student's formal education. Although it is not necessarily limited ...

videos — which introduced topics like

fractal dimension In mathematics, more specifically in fractal geometry, a fractal dimension is a ratio providing a statistical index of complexity comparing how detail in a pattern (strictly speaking, a fractal pattern) changes with the scale at which it is meas ...

s — grew popular, they were featured in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' and on

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

, eventually gaining the support of the

Khan Academy Khan Academy is an American non-profit educational organization created in 2008 by Sal Khan. Its goal is creating a set of online tools that help educate students. The organization produces short lessons in the form of videos. Its website also in ...

and making videos for the educational site as their "Resident Mathemusician". Many of Hart's videos combined mathematics and music, such as " Twelve tones", which was called "deliriously and delightfully profound" by ''Salon''. Together with

Henry Segerman Henry Segerman (born 1979 in Manchester, UK) is an Associate Professor of mathematics at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma who does research in three-dimensional geometry and topology, especially three-manifolds, triangulations a ...

, Hart wrote "The Quaternion Group as a Symmetry Group", which was included in the anthology ''The Best Writing on Mathematics 2015''. In 2014, Hart founded a research group called eleVR, with Emily Eifler and Andrea Hawksley, to research

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

(VR). The group created VR videos, and had also collaborated on educational computer games. They created the game Hypernom, where the player has to eat part of 4 dimensional polytopes which are stereographically projected into 3D and viewed using a

virtual reality headset A virtual reality headset (or VR headset) is a head-mounted device that provides virtual reality for the wearer. VR headsets are widely used with VR video games but they are also used in other applications, including simulators and trainers. VR ...

. In June, eleVR released an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

web video player that worked with the

Oculus Rift Oculus Rift is a discontinued line of virtual reality headsets developed and manufactured by Oculus VR, a division of Meta Platforms, released on March 28, 2016. In 2012 Oculus initiated a Kickstarter campaign to fund the Rift's development, af ...

. In the same year Hart created the playable blog post ''

Parable of the Polygons ''Parable of the Polygons'' is a 2014 explorable explanation created by Vi Hart and Nicky Case. The article focuses on a society of blue squares and yellow triangles which have slight personal biases against diversity, which leads to social segr ...

'' with

Nicky Case Nicky Case is a genderqueer Canadian indie game developer best known for developing video games such as '' Coming Out Simulator'' and '' Parable of the Polygons'', both released in 2014. Case's most recent game, ''Adventures with Anxiety'' was r ...

. The game was based on economist

Thomas Schelling Thomas Crombie Schelling (April 14, 1921 – December 13, 2016) was an American economist and professor of foreign policy, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, College ...

's ''Dynamic Models of Segregation''. In May 2016, eleVR joined

Y Combinator Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Str ...

Research (YCR) as part of the

Human Advancement Research Community Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Stripe ...

(HARC) project, in which Hart was listed as a Principal Investigator. As of 2020, Hart is a Senior Research Project Manager at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, Vi Living people Mathematics educators 21st-century American mathematicians Recreational mathematicians Stony Brook University alumni American YouTubers Education-related YouTube channels Place of birth missing (living people) Mathematical artists Mathematics popularizers Non-binary scientists 1988 births Microsoft people

Early life and education

Career

See also

References

External links