1
00:00:00,990 --> 00:00:04,850
Welcome to a very brief
introduction to data visualization.

2
00:00:05,850 --> 00:00:06,490
I'm Scott Davidoff.

3
00:00:07,570 --> 00:00:15,628
The first part of the story really is just
to communicate why visualization matters.

4
00:00:15,628 --> 00:00:21,110
One of the fundamental
tenets of this entire course

5
00:00:21,110 --> 00:00:26,335
is really about the fact
that all of the tools that

6
00:00:26,335 --> 00:00:31,829
we have are becoming
prolific at generating data.

7
00:00:31,829 --> 00:00:34,332
And, we are looking for better and

8
00:00:34,332 --> 00:00:39,000
better tools that allow us
to understand that data.

9
00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:43,800
And data visualization is one of
the most powerful tools available to us.

10
00:00:45,720 --> 00:00:47,550
Why should visualization matter?

11
00:00:48,600 --> 00:00:52,290
Well, let me give you a number of reasons,
and

12
00:00:52,290 --> 00:00:56,330
I hope that they tell the story of
the things that visualization can do.

13
00:00:56,330 --> 00:01:00,580
So, the first thing that
visualization can do is it can

14
00:01:00,580 --> 00:01:06,030
reveal invisible parts of the world
that we don't have access to.

15
00:01:06,030 --> 00:01:12,330
You can see in this fluid dynamics
video of air coming across a wing.

16
00:01:12,330 --> 00:01:17,841
How, because unique, applications
of visualization were applied,

17
00:01:17,841 --> 00:01:23,750
that we're able to actually able to see
eddies that are normally not visible.

18
00:01:23,750 --> 00:01:25,880
Another reason is for

19
00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:30,749
us to be able to capture events as they
happen in a way that's not available.

20
00:01:32,390 --> 00:01:36,840
Now, if you look at this particular image,
this is actually taken by

21
00:01:36,840 --> 00:01:42,840
a physician from the 19th
century named Etienne Marey.

22
00:01:42,840 --> 00:01:49,130
And Marey actually figured out
with this device, how to create

23
00:01:49,130 --> 00:01:56,340
a visible marker of the pulse of a human
being by capturing the force in the veins.

24
00:01:58,850 --> 00:02:02,260
Another thing that we can
do with visualization is to

25
00:02:02,260 --> 00:02:05,260
show parts of the world
that are important.

26
00:02:05,260 --> 00:02:10,530
I'd say most boat pilots would be really
paying attention to the shallow parts of

27
00:02:10,530 --> 00:02:11,070
this map.

28
00:02:13,110 --> 00:02:15,310
Another one of the things
that visualization can do

29
00:02:16,450 --> 00:02:21,200
is it allows us to conduct analyses and

30
00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:26,910
understand the world in a way that is
hard just given different types of data.

31
00:02:28,190 --> 00:02:32,570
The example that I'm showing here is a map

32
00:02:32,570 --> 00:02:39,120
of that shows the outbreak
of Cholera in London.

33
00:02:39,120 --> 00:02:44,390
And if you at, at this time,
a physician was trying

34
00:02:44,390 --> 00:02:50,390
to understand what caused the outbreak and
had this, this incredible insight.

35
00:02:50,390 --> 00:02:56,080
What if we took all of the locations where
each of the victims were identified and

36
00:02:56,080 --> 00:02:57,100
plot them on a map?

37
00:02:58,820 --> 00:03:05,020
No one had done this before, and
as you start to see the actual,

38
00:03:05,020 --> 00:03:09,970
the most intense outburst
of cholera focuses around

39
00:03:09,970 --> 00:03:13,950
the location of a well in
the center of the screen.

40
00:03:15,080 --> 00:03:18,340
That well turns out to have been
the source of the cholera outbreak.

41
00:03:19,500 --> 00:03:24,970
And this is one of the first examples
of how placing scientific and

42
00:03:24,970 --> 00:03:29,840
medical data on a map
showed human kind that we

43
00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:33,730
have an ability to understand things
that weren't available previously.

44
00:03:35,980 --> 00:03:38,720
Another one of the things
that visualization can do,

45
00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:40,200
is it can help us tell a story.

46
00:03:41,440 --> 00:03:45,460
You can see in this slide Watson and

47
00:03:45,460 --> 00:03:49,420
Crick have built
a three-dimensional model of DNA.

48
00:03:50,570 --> 00:03:55,770
And, while they understood DNA and
what the helix meant, by giving it

49
00:03:55,770 --> 00:04:00,940
a physical embodiment, it allowed
the rest of the world to understand what

50
00:04:00,940 --> 00:04:04,970
it was that they were coming up with,
and what exactly this helix shape meant.

51
00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:11,750
Another one of the things that
visualization has allowed us to do, is to

52
00:04:11,750 --> 00:04:18,425
see things that simply happen at a level
that's not available to our perception.

53
00:04:20,150 --> 00:04:25,260
If you look at this picture from
the very beginnings of photography.

54
00:04:25,260 --> 00:04:30,700
Muybridge determined a method
to capture rates of a,

55
00:04:30,700 --> 00:04:35,150
frames of film very rapidly,
and at this time,

56
00:04:35,150 --> 00:04:40,990
no one actually understood how
a horse's gallop functions.

57
00:04:40,990 --> 00:04:46,060
And you can see that this was, actually
the first evidence that when a horse runs,

58
00:04:46,060 --> 00:04:48,980
for some time it's actually
not touching the ground.

59
00:04:50,600 --> 00:04:56,140
This kind of information was
not visible to human beings

60
00:04:56,140 --> 00:04:58,640
before the advent of this technology.

61
00:05:00,340 --> 00:05:05,200
So, visualization provides
an amazing capability.

62
00:05:05,200 --> 00:05:12,540
And, the way that I like to summarize it,
is to look at Doug Engelbart.

63
00:05:12,540 --> 00:05:15,970
Turing award winner,
Doug Engelbart's description,

64
00:05:15,970 --> 00:05:20,056
of what he thinks computing
might be able to accomplish.

65
00:05:20,056 --> 00:05:28,710
And it's not to try and replace human
intelligence, but rather to increase

66
00:05:28,710 --> 00:05:35,130
the capability of humans to understand
complex problems and derive solutions.

67
00:05:35,130 --> 00:05:41,440
Effectively, what he is saying is,
computing provides a lever

68
00:05:41,440 --> 00:05:45,326
that is rarely accessible
through other media.

69
00:05:45,326 --> 00:05:50,274
And that, data visualization
magnifies our ability to

70
00:05:50,274 --> 00:05:54,810
understand science and
ultimately the universe.

71
00:05:55,850 --> 00:05:58,860
So I hope this is an enjoyable journey.

72
00:05:58,860 --> 00:06:04,040
And let's dive in, to some of the very
basic facts about data visualization.