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Graphic discovery : a trout in the milk and other visual adventures
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Graphic discovery : a trout in the milk and other visual adventures

Author: Howard Wainer
Publisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, ©2005.
Edition/Format:   Book : EnglishView all editions and formats
Summary:
"In an illustrated story of invention and inventor that mixes science and politics, intrigue and scandal, revolution and shopping, Howard Wainer validates Thoreau's observation that circumstantial evidence can be quite convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk." "The story really begins with the eighteenth-century origins of the art, logic, and methods of data display, which emerged, full-grown, in William  Read more...
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Details

Named Person: William Playfair; William Playfair
Material Type: Internet resource
Document Type: Book, Internet Resource
All Authors / Contributors: Howard Wainer
ISBN: 0691103011 9780691103013
OCLC Number: 53926612
Description: xvi, 192 p. : ill., maps ; 27 cm.
Contents: I: William Playfair and the origins of graphical display --
Why Playfair? --
Who was Playfair? / Ian Spence and Howard Wainer --
William Playfair: a daring worthless fellow / Ian Spence and Howard Wainer --
Scaling the heights (and widths) --
A Priestley view of international currency exchanges --
Tom's veggies and the American way --
The graphical inventions of Dubourg and Ferguson: two precursors to William Playfair --
Winds across Europe: Francis Galton and the graphic discovery of weather patterns --
II: Using graphical displays to understand the modern world --
A graphical investigation of the scourge of Vietnam --
Two mind-bending statistical paradoxes --
Order in the court --
No order in the court --
Like a trout in the milk --
Scaling the market --
Sex, smoking, and life insurance: a graphical view --
There they go again! --
Sex and sports: how quickly are women gaining? --
Clear thinking made visible: redesigning score reports for students --
III: Graphical displays in the twenty-first century --
John Wilder Tukey: the father of twenty-first-century graphical display --
Graphical tools for the twenty-first century: I. Spinning and slicing --
Graphical tools for the twenty-first century: II. Nearness and smoothing engines --
Epilogue: A selection of selection anomalies --
Dramatis personae.
Responsibility: Howard Wainer.
More information:

Abstract:

"In an illustrated story of invention and inventor that mixes science and politics, intrigue and scandal, revolution and shopping, Howard Wainer validates Thoreau's observation that circumstantial evidence can be quite convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk." "The story really begins with the eighteenth-century origins of the art, logic, and methods of data display, which emerged, full-grown, in William Playfair's landmark 1786 trade atlas of England and Wales. The remarkable Scot singlehandedly popularized the atheoretical plotting of data to reveal suggestive patterns - an achievement that foretold the graphic explosion of the nineteenth century, with atlases published across the observational sciences as the language of science moved from words to pictures."--BOOK JACKET.

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