On Wednesday I uploaded two videos about issues with the transformer equation taught to GCSE and A Level students. Little did I expect but YouTube’s algorithm picked them up and thousands of people watched them. Consequently, dozens of people decided to comment on them. That’s fine, of course, but many of the comments were actually quite rude and a couple were downright offensive about me.
I’ve a thick skin, it comes with being a teacher, but I certainly don’t need to test my skin thickness by reading and responding to YouTube comments. Of course, most of the comments included incorrect physics, so I had to correct that otherwise someone looking in the comments for answers might pick up misconceptions. But along with the bad physics came assertions that I was being deceptive and cheating to make the results look odd, statements that I did not know what I was talking about, and even demands that I stop putting videos on YouTube altogether. The internet can be a nasty place.
On Friday I posted a blog post about transformers, in which I explained the phenomenon observed in the videos. This too attracted criticism from people making basic physics mistakes but speaking as though they had total certainty in their own explanations.
I’ve now hidden the videos and the blog post. I didn’t expect the backlash and I didn’t think transformers would be such a controversial topic. As always, I was (and am) just trying to help people get a better understanding of physics.
So I’m in a low mood now.
Physics with Keith 