This year we hosted the first iteration of a physics and consciousness explication challenge.

This is where Brilliant.org pitched in 1000 USD to each of the top five entries, totaling $5,000.

We received such a rich volume of explanatory videos from you which were designed to showcase theories, explanations,

rigorous expository material in general as to what lies at the

fundamentals of our reality. Entrants were encouraged to go over a theory of their own

or to expand, either in application or the details of a theory that they were

particularly fond of. In the last two months there's been a market increase in the

attention to a wide variety of small channels due to this challenge. Considering

that the vast majority of the entrance were uploaded to nascent channels, where the entry was among the first or the second videos uploaded, it warmed my heart, it still warms my heart that such an extensive amount of people chose to take part in this. Again, the point of this challenge isn't to win, what the heck does winning mean anyway, but instead to serve as encouragement for those who are on the periphery of wanting to produce content in this space, but lack that last modicum of a nudge.

In order to evaluate the entries, as a first pass, we ran a peer review process where

an algorithm would feed participants different videos to compare, and they'd be asked to vote

on which one more aptly fits the criteria about to be listed, as well as their own preference.

There were so many entries, I thought maybe 10 people would partake in this. I remember telling Brilliant, like, this is going to be not terribly successful. It's a test. It's an experiment. We like to innovate at Tullin. Most of what's inventive or attempts to be inventive or most of what's new fails at its first attempt, second, even third. However, we received over 50 submissions,

superlative submissions. They were well constructed, they were engaging. Clearly, the videos took

an arduous amount of work like, geez, Louise. Thus, we firstly and foremostly thank everyone

for all the work that they put in. And while we did promise to select five winners,

hey, this sounds so cheesy, but you all are winners.

There's a playlist on the channel right now where you can go and you can look at all the entries.

To choose winners, Sam and I both spent several weeks giving a thorough look at the entries.

This was after the peer review process and we also recruited other researchers and academics who are in the relevant field to help make that decision.

And by the way,

there will be plenty more of these contests, these challenges, these encouragements to help further

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