Vi Hart
{{Short description|American recreational mathematician (born 1988)}}
{{About|the recreational mathematician|the California-born jazz singer|Victoria Hart}}
{{Use American English|date=March 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2016}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Vi Hart
| image = Vi Hart.jpg
| alt = Portrait of Vi Hart, a young white person with long hair in a bun, sitting on top of a finished mathematical project, a polyhedron made of bamboo sticks and rope.
| caption = Hart in 2012, sitting on top of a finished project
| birth_name = Victoria Hart
| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1988}}
| birth_place =
| nationality = American
| other_names =
| occupation = YouTube personality, educator, inventor
| years_active =
| known_for = Mathematical/musical YouTube videos
| website =
| module = {{Infobox YouTube personality|embed=yes
| channel_handle = Vihart
| years_active = 2009–present
| genre = {{hlist|Education|music}}
| subscribers = 1.45 million
| views = 154.67 million
| network =
| associated_acts =
| silver_button = yes
| silver_year =
| gold_button = yes
| gold_year =
| stats_update = 14 October 2024
| stats_ref_group = †
}}
}}
Victoria "Vi" Hart ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|v|aɪ|_|h|ɑr|t|,_|ˈ|v|iː|_|h|ɑr|t}} {{respell|VY|_|hart|,_|VEE|_|hart}};{{Cite web |title=FAQ |url=http://vihart.com/vi-hart-faq/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141213014403/http://vihart.com/vi-hart-faq/ |archive-date=December 13, 2014 |access-date=December 12, 2014 |website=Vi Hart.com}} born 1988){{Cite magazine |title=Khan Academy's mathemusician Vi Hart brings dull lessons to life |url=https://www.wired.co.uk/article/maths-x-music--magic |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160920090028/http://www.wired.co.uk/article/maths-x-music--magic |archive-date=September 20, 2016 |access-date=January 27, 2016 |magazine=Wired}} is an American mathematician and YouTuber. They describe themself as a "recreational mathemusician" and are well-known for creating mathematical videos on YouTube{{Cite news |last=Chang |first=Kenneth |date=January 17, 2011 |title=Bending and Stretching Classroom Lessons to Make Math Inspire |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/science/18prof.html |work=The New York Times}}{{Cite news |last=Bell |first=Melissa |date=December 17, 2010 |title=Making math magic: Vi Hart doodles her lessons |url=http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blog-post/2010/12/making_math_magic_vi_hart_dood.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120528203654/http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blog-post/2010/12/making_math_magic_vi_hart_dood.html |archive-date=May 28, 2012 |work=The Washington Post}}{{Cite news |last=Krulwich |first=Robert |title=I Hate Math! (Not After This, You Won't) |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2010/12/16/132050207/this-is-for-the-i-hate-math-crowd-not-after-this-you-won-t |access-date=2016-11-12 |work=NPR.org}} and popularizing mathematics.{{Cite web |title=Weird geometry: Art enters the hyperbolic realm |url=https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/weird-geometry-art-enters-the-hyperbolic-realm/ |access-date=2023-01-04 |website=New Scientist |language=en-US}} Hart founded the virtual reality research group eleVR and has co-authored several research papers on computational geometry and the mathematics of paper folding.{{DBLP|name=Vi Hart}}. Retrieved March 29, 2014.{{Cite web |date=March 29, 2017 |title=Reshaping the Universe: VR Landscapes Explore Mind-Bending Geometry |url=https://www.livescience.com/58448-virtual-reality-reveals-non-euclidean-universe.html |website=Live Science}}
Together with another YouTube mathematics popularizer, Matt Parker, Hart won the 2018 Communications Award of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics for "entertaining, thought-provoking mathematics and music videos on YouTube that explain mathematical concepts through doodles".{{Cite news |date=December 8, 2017 |title=Vi Hart and Matt Parker to Receive 2018 JPBM Communications Awards |url=http://www.ams.org/news?news_id=3878 |work=News, Events and Announcements |publisher=American Mathematical Society}}
Career
Hart's career as a mathematics popularizer began in 2010 with a video series about "doodling in math class". After these recreational mathematics videos—which introduced topics like fractal dimensions—grew popular, Hart was featured in The New York Times and on National Public Radio, eventually gaining the support of the Khan Academy and making videos for it as its "Resident Mathemusician".{{Cite AV media |last=Khan Academy |title=Announcement |date=2012-01-03 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWuAYoHysIo |access-date=2018-01-07}}{{Cite news |last=Gans |first=Joshua |date=2012-01-24 |title=Learning on Speed |url=https://hbr.org/2012/01/learning-on-speed |access-date=2018-01-08 |work=Harvard Business Review}} Many of Hart's videos combine mathematics and music, such as Twelve tones, which Salon called "deliriously and delightfully profound".{{Cite news |last=Leonard |first=Andrew |date=2013-06-28 |title=The mad genius of Vi Hart |url=https://www.salon.com/2013/06/28/the_mad_genius_of_vi_hart/ |access-date=2018-01-08 |work=Salon |language=en-US}}
Together with Henry Segerman, Hart wrote "The Quaternion Group as a Symmetry Group", which was included in the anthology The Best Writing on Mathematics 2015.{{Cite book |last=Hart |first=Vi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qL7CCgAAQBAJ |title=The Best Writing on Mathematics 2015 |last2=Segerman |first2=Henry |date=2016-01-12 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=9781400873371 |editor-last=Pitici |editor-first=Mircea |pages=141–153 |language=en |chapter=The Quaternion Group as a Symmetry Group |bibcode=2014arXiv1404.6596H |arxiv=1404.6596}}
In 2014, Hart, Emily Eifler, and Andrea Hawksley founded the research group eleVR to research virtual reality (VR). The group created VR videos and also collaborated on educational computer games.{{Cite web |title=Introducing eleVR – Vi Hart |url=http://vihart.com/elevr/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220523114737/http://vihart.com/elevr/ |archive-date=May 23, 2022 |access-date=November 28, 2017 |website=vihart.com}}{{Cite magazine |last=Bhatia |first=Aatish |date=December 8, 2014 |title=Empirical Zeal How Small Biases Lead to a Divided World: An Interactive Exploration of Racial Segregation |url=https://www.wired.com/2014/12/empzeal-parable-polygons/ |magazine=Wired}} It created the game Hypernom, where the player has to eat part of 4 dimensional polytopes that are stereographically projected into 3D and viewed with a virtual reality headset.{{Cite news |last=Lawson-Perfect |first=Christian |date=July 31, 2015 |title=Hypernom |url=http://aperiodical.com/2015/07/hypernom/ |access-date=5 April 2016 |work=The Aperiodical |language=en-US}}{{Cite conference |last=Hart |first=Vi |last2=Hawksley |first2=Andrea |last3=Segerman |first3=Henry |last4=Bosch |first4=Marc ten |date=2015-07-21 |title=Proceedings of Bridges 2015: Mathematics, Music, Art, Architecture, Culture |pages=387–390 |arxiv=1507.05707 |bibcode=2015arXiv150705707H |contribution=Hypernom: Mapping VR Headset Orientation to S^3}} In June, eleVR released an open source web video player that worked with the Oculus Rift.{{Cite web |title=eleVR: the first web video player for virtual reality |url=https://www.cnet.com/news/elevr-the-first-web-video-player-for-virtual-reality/}} In the same year Hart created the playable blog post Parable of the Polygons with Nicky Case. The game was based on economist Thomas Schelling's Dynamic Models of Segregation.{{Cite web |title=eleVR leaving YCR – elevr |url=http://elevr.com/elevr-leaving-ycr/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170901204152/http://elevr.com/elevr-leaving-ycr/ |archive-date=September 1, 2017 |website=elevr.com}}{{Cite web |last=Farokhmanesh |first=Megan |date=December 11, 2014 |title=A visual guide to bias, as explained by adorable shapes |url=https://www.polygon.com/2014/12/11/7361201/parable-of-the-polygons-bias |website=Polygon}} In May 2016, eleVR joined Y Combinator Research (YCR) as part of the Human Advancement Research Community (HARC) project, in which Hart was listed as a Principal Investigator.{{Cite web |last=Altman |first=Sam |date=May 11, 2016 |title=HARC |url=https://blog.ycombinator.com/harc |access-date=20 June 2016 |website=Y Combinator Blog |language=en-US}}
Hart is a Senior Research Project Manager at Microsoft.{{Cite web |last=Allen |first=Danielle |date=21 April 2020 |title=Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience |url=https://ethics.harvard.edu/files/center-for-ethics/files/roadmaptopandemicresilience_updated_4.20.20_0.pdf |access-date=21 April 2020 |website=Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics |publisher=Harvard University}} As of 2021 they were a Director of Policy and Strategy in the Societal Resilience Group at Microsoft Research.{{Cite web |date=October 20, 2021 |title=Opening remarks: Tech for resilient communities |url=https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/video/opening-remarks-tech-for-resilient-communities/ |website=Microsoft}}
Personal life
Hart is the child of mathematical sculptor George W. Hart, and received a degree in music at Stony Brook University.
Hart identifies as "gender agnostic";{{Cite tweet |number=461633678179696640 |user=vihartvihart |title=Fun fact: I consider myself gender agnostic. "Person," not "Woman," please. I respect your religion, but don't like having it pushed on me. |first=Vi |last=Hart |date=April 30, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305150425/https://twitter.com/vihartvihart/status/461633678179696640 |archive-date=March 5, 2016}} in a video released in 2015, they spoke about their lack of gender identity—including lacking non-binary identities such as agender—and their attitude to gendered terms such as pronouns has evolved over time; as a teenager, they thought people who stated their gender were being "pretentious", but now they understand the importance to others (especially trans and genderqueer individuals) of how other people identify, even though they have no preference as to which pronouns they are called.{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmKix-75dsg |title=On Gender |date=2015-06-08 |last=Hart |first=Vi |type=Online video |publisher=YouTube}}
References
{{Reflist}}
=Sources by Hart=
{{Reflist|group=†}}
External links
{{Commons}}
- {{YouTube|u=Vihart}}
- {{Vimeo|u=vihart}}
- {{Cite web |title=Vi Hart |url=https://www.khanacademy.org/math/recreational-math/vi-hart |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160128191721/https://www.khanacademy.org/math/recreational-math/vi-hart |archive-date=January 28, 2016 |publisher=Khan Academy}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20220901051017/http://vihart.com/ Personal Website] Archived from the original on September 1, 2022.
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, Vi}}
Category:21st-century American mathematicians
Category:Education-related YouTube channels
Category:American mathematics educators
Category:Mathematics popularizers
Category:Place of birth missing (living people)