what is a variable?? a quick, beginner friendly intro!

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]What is a variable in 60 seconds? Here we go. A variable is a handy-dandy math symbol that represents something that can change. Woo, it's so fun. It's basically like you can't pin me down.

[00:00:13]I'm going to be all kinds of different values.

[00:00:16]It might also stand in for something that we don't yet know. And so a variable, which we often represent with letters like X or Y or maybe K or T.

[00:00:29]Ooh, T is a good one.

[00:00:32]We use letters so that we don't get them confused with the things that we do know, um, which are often represented by numbers.

[00:00:40]T is a good example because it often stands in for time. And as we all know, you can't pin time down. It's always changing. And so having a variable to represent something that can change over time, always, is really helpful as we start to look for patterns for how things are related.