Vi Hart

Victoria Hart (born 1988), commonly known as Vi Hart, is an American mathematician and YouTuber. They describe themself as a "recreational mathemusician" and are well-known for creating mathematical videos on YouTube and popularizing mathematics. Hart founded the virtual reality research group eleVR and has co-authored several research papers on computational geometry and the mathematics of paper folding. 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". Early life and education 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"; 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 as a "linguistic game" they were not interested in playing. They said 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 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". Many of Hart's videos combine mathematics and music, such as "Twelve tones", which Salon called "deliriously and delightfully profound".