Aug 7, 2023

Math Checks Out in Alan Becker's Viral Short "Animation vs. Math"

Alan Becker has been one of the most popular indie animators on Youtube since his first viral hit "Animator vs. Animation" became a huge hit in 2006. Since then, his channel has grown significantly and now boasts over 23.5 million channel subscribers and over 5.5 billion views.

Becker recently posted a new video, "Animation vs. Math," which not only delighted longtime fans of his work, but also shook up the math world. The 14-minute video received more than 26 million views in the first month of its release. The video has been so popular that reactions and analysis videos to the short film have also garnered millions of views.

The short features Becker's signature stick figure character and, as usual, no dialogue. In this video, the orange protagonist encounters some basic numbers and symbols and begins to fiddle with them to create interesting equations. As the video progresses, the math gets harder and the consequences of the orange man's toys become more and more significant. Even if you can't wrap your head around the math, it's worth sticking with it to the end to see how crazy things can get, as I soon did.

The drawings themselves are minimalist to the extreme, but there is no doubting Becker's qualifications as a filmmaker or visual storyteller. As is typical of his work, the movement, camera work, visual gags, and pacing are all excellent. And according to experts like Oxford University mathematician Dr. Tom Crawford, the math checks out. We'll take his word for it.