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Math Encounters -- Five Balls, Two Hands: The Patterns of Juggling -- Colin Wright (Presentation)

Math Encounters -- Five Balls, Two Hands: The Patterns of Juggling -- Colin Wright (Presentation) on HackerTube: recommended by 3 Hacker News commenters across 3 separate months, 2017–2026.

National Museum of Mathematics

lecture · evergreen

Open on YouTube

Mathematician Colin Wright demonstrates juggling and explains the mathematics of juggling patterns, including notation that led to new throwing patterns. It is a public presentation at the Museum of Mathematics aimed at a general audience.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN recommends it as an entertaining way to learn math through juggling.

people recommended it
3
separate months
3
strong recommendations
1
discussed on HN
2017–2026
“my fondness for this video that uses juggling to good effect to teach math in an entertaining way”
— DoreenMichele, Dec 2018, in “Steve Jobs hired a career juggler to teach programming to developers”

What HN commenters said

4 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.

DoreenMicheleDec 2018Strongly recommends

I only looked because of my fondness for this video that uses juggling to good effect to teach math in an entertaining way: ▶ this video

in “Steve Jobs hired a career juggler to teach programming to developers” · View on HN

sreanMay 2026Recommends

Colin Wright has a fun video on braids formed by the trajectory of juggled balls. Can't seem to find it. Hope he sees this and posts. Found it ▶ this video On a different note do anyone of you know of a way to browse, College Mathematics, American Mathematical Monthly, Mathematics Gazette, Mathematical Intelligencer ... back issues by volume ? Without an institutional login that is. Scimag was one way. Seems to have disappeared since the Ukraine war.

in “Braids, Hacktastic, and Rock Climbing” · View on HN

ColinWrightSep 2017Recommends

Among the other resources is the lecture I gave at the series of lectures sponsored by MoMath: ▶ this video Intended for a general audience.

in “Claude Shannon and Juggling” · View on HN

DoreenMicheleApr 2020Cites it

HN now gets about 5 million visitors a month. In case it needs to be said for some of those folks, the OP -- ColinWright -- is also rather well connected from what I gather and part of that circle (of recreational mathematics, etc). ▶ this video So I imagine the mods granted the black bar in part on the strength of who posted it. They don't do so lightly and have been known to put a hold on threads in the past to wait for confirmation. They haven't chosen to do so this time and there is likely a compelling reason for that. (Example of HN waiting for confirmation: [link] ; [link] )

in “John Conway has died” · View on HN

Topics & tags

Recreational & visual mathProbability & game theoryMagic, puzzles & curiositiesjugglingsiteswapcombinatoricscolin wrightrecreational math