Sunday, May 25, 2014

Explaining Snow, Minard, and Nightingale


Big Bang Data // Visualizaciones históricas a través de mapas gráficos (Voe eng) from CCCB on Vimeo.

The Big Bang Data exhibit, which you can visit if you go to Barcelona before October, or to Madrid between February and May 2015, showcases some classic visualizations, such as John Snow's cholera map, Charles Joseph Minard's Napoleon's Russian campaign chart, and Florence Nightingale coxcombs. I was in asked to explain how to read them, and their historical significance. The video above is in Spanish, but it has English subtitles.

(Side note: In the video you'll see me wearing another t-shirt from my collection, the one with Darwin's popular sketch of the tree of evolution.)

UPDATE: A student of mine, David Gisbert, has visited the exhibit. He sent me a couple of photographs: