The IFT Youtube channel holds the Silver Play Button award, a distinction bestowed upon reaching the number of 100000 subscribers
The Youtube channel of the Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT, a joint research centre of CSIC and the Autonomous University of Madrid, received during March past year the YouTube Silver Play Button award, a distinction which YouTube confers when a channel surpasses the mark of 100,000 subscribers.
Its still steadily growing channel had, as of April 2018, more than 300,000 subscribers yet, more than 10 million reproductions, with its two most popular videos having more than one million reproductions each. This goes in hand with the steady increase in the number of subscribers and channel views, suggesting that in some future the IFT channel may perhaps obtain the next tier Youtube award: the Youtube Gold Play Button (one million subscribers), just below the equivalent “Diamond” and “Ruby” awards (at ten, and fifty million subscribers, respectively).
IFT is a centre researching at the frontiers of elemental particle physics, astroparticles and cosmology, with the aim to understand the fundamental keys to nature and the universe. Its YouTube channel can boast a wealth of self-produced materials, whereof a series of animation videos elaborated in collaboration with the channel Quantum Fracture stand out. Dark matter, the oscillation of neutrinos or black holes, are among the subjects treated in this partnership. Of this series, the most viewed video is ‘La teoría de cuerdas en 7 minutos’ (‘String theory in seven minutes’), with more than 2.2 million views.
Another of its most popular initiatives is “IFT responde”, where the general public is given the opportunity to ask questions to researchers of the institute, who answer in a video made in an accessible, amusing way. The channel also disseminates conferences, as for instance the cycle on Fundamental Physics which took place at the Residencia de Estudiantes CSIC, as well as other talks of the research personnel of the centre.
Image credit:
IFT Silver Buttom photograph by Susana Hernández, IFT.