The real meaning of MPH- The Original- TCHappenings

Travis Chambers · 13.1M views · 2011-12-17 · 4:35

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

A viral amateur video in which a woman struggles to explain what miles per hour means. It is a comedic clip of someone failing to reason about speed.

On Hacker News

HN mostly uses it as a cautionary example of missing basic conceptual understanding in debates about math education and hiring.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2012–2021

Topics

Internet culture & memes Math & theory (other)

What people said

username90 · 2021-05 · Criticism
Why do you assume that students know what speed is? Have you seen this video? [VIDEO] The problem here is that she don't know what speed is. She knows a lot of formulas, but not what speed actually is. That is a typical student, if you add speed in a formula you will make them confused and the problem will get harder.
Read the original HN comment ↗

DanBC · 2013-10 · Reference
It's depressing but giving people "s = d / t" then asking questions like "Bob travelled for 2 hours at 50 mph. How far has Bob travelled?" is still tricky for some people to work out. We don't want people to learn formulae. We don't particularly need people to do mental arithmetic. We want people to understand problem solving and gathering information and relationships between different bits of the formula. See also the viral video "meaning of MPH" ( [VIDEO] ) There's some unpleasant "HURR DURR GURLS ARE STOOPID" in some videos (and don't for the love of god read the comments) ( [LINK] )
Read the original HN comment ↗

mistercow · 2012-05 · Criticism
How do you mean "subjective"? There is an objective answer to the question "how many golf balls can fit in a double decker bus" and while I suppose you could call it "trivial", being able to make that kind of estimate efficiently really is an important skill for programmers (and scientists, and engineers) to have. That said, this is another FizzBuzz sort of test, and should not be made unnecessarily complicated. This is what you're trying to filter out: [VIDEO]
Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Travis Chambers, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks

SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources