Images of Knowledge (?) / Milestones of Graphic Presentation of Data in Hungary

Attila Bátorfy, ELTE MMI/Átló

Kőszeg, Institute of Advanced Studies

The scope

visual representations carrying information

numbers

pictographs

script

fonetic script

hieroglyphs

tokens

informational images

pictograms

tables

signs

diagrams

information graphics

data graphics

infographics

statistical diagrams

visualizations

scientific imagery

logical diagrams

statistical/mathematical diagrams

"normal" map

data map

i.e. 40 000k.
Szváziföld
rovátka

i.e. 3300k.
Mezopotámia
tokenek

520k.
Porfiriosz/Boethius
fastruktúra

950k.
Ismeretlen
vonaldiagram

1350k.
Nicole Oresme
oszlopdiagram

1644
Michael van Langren
statisztikai diagram

1685
Robert Plot
az első grafikon

1721
Athanasius Kircher?
modern oszlopdiagram

1765
Joseph Priestley
idővonal

1786
William Playfair
felületdiagram

1786
William Playfair
rúddiagram

1829
André-Michel Guerry
rózsadiagram

1801
William Playfair
kördiagram

1786
William Playfair
folyamdiagram

i.e. 3100k.
Mezopotámia
piktogramok

1782
Charles de Fourcroy
négyzetosztás

1770
Philippe Buache
halmozott oszlop

1844
Charles-Joseph Minard
Marimekko-diagram

1877
Georg von Mayr
radardiagram

1886
Francis Galton
pontdiagram

1889
Matthey Henry Sankey
Sankey-diagram

1877
Georg von Mayr
területdiagram

1873
Touissant Loua
hőtérkép

1914
Willard C. Brinton
jeldiagram

1925
Otto és Marie Neurath
ISOTYPE

1895
Karl Pearson
hisztogram

1934
Jacob Moreno
szociogram

1970
John W. Tukey
box plot

1997
Jerry Hintze és Ray Nelson
hegedűdiagram

1999
Ethan Rasiel
vízesésdiagram

2004
Martin Krzwinsky
húrdiagram

1916
Henry Gantt
Gantt chart

1908
Georgi Voronoi
Voronoi-diagram

1897
WD Bancroft
ternary-plot

1991
Ben Shneiderman
treemap

2017
Ellie Highwood
vonalkód chart

diagrams as images of knowledge

diagrams and knowledge

Aristotle: "visual proof" of mathematical theorems

Ramón Llull: "visual evidence of the "science" of God"

Charles S. Peirce: "reasoning and proving is based on diagrammatic thinking"

Bruno Latour: "diagrams make facts harder"

Howard Wainer: "visual revelations"

Johanna Drucker: "our knowledge exists mostly through diagrams"

diagrams as data graphics as images of knowledge

Gottfried Boehm (iconic turn): useful images

Horst Bredekamp (Bildwissenschaft): epistemic images

James Elkins: informational images

Sybille Kramer: operative images

critical problems

over the last twenty years, more and more people have been questioning this interpretation based on cognitive psychology, epistemology, ideology and representation

how do we use diagrams?

exploration

explanation

to discover
to understand
to analyse
to test
to prove or disprove
to find insights
to find new questions

to show
to enlighten
to explain
to persuade
to manipulate

some classics

William Playfair: The Commercial and Political Atlas, 1786

The first book containing dozens of data graphics
The first use of data graphics for statistical data
Charts as we know them
"standard"
explanations of "how to read" them
essay on the value of graphics
area chart, bar chart, pie chart

Valentine Seaman's yellow fever map

1795–96, New York
1798
the first disease map

"Snow's" cholera map

correlation:
S=waste
x=case

Seaman's
wrong conclusion because of miasma theory:
waste causes fever

=mosquitos

Florence Nightingale: Causes of Mortality, 1863

AM Guerry, 1829

William Farr, 1852

Charles-Joseph Minard: Napoleon's Russian campaign of 1812-13, 1869

W.E.B Du Bois: The American Negro, 1900

W.E.B Du Bois: The American Negro, 1900

Tynan DeBold and Dov Friedman: Battling Infectious Diseases, WSJ, 2015
https://graphics.wsj.com/infectious-diseases-and-vaccines/

Étienne-Jules Marey, 1878

Howard G. Funkhouser, 1937

Michael Friendly, 2005–

Michael Friendly: The Milestones Project, 2001–

Something is missing: the entire world outside the West

my incorrect observation: low production, poor quality

after the research: high quality, many innovation but 50 years later

Michael Friendly:A Brief History of Data Visualization. In Chun-houn Chen, Wolfgang Karl Hardle, Anthony Unwin (szerk.): Handbook of Data Visualization. Springer Verlag, 2006, p. 16.

az első ismert magyar adatgrafika

magyar "aranykor"

Weiss Ferenc - Ephemerides Meteorologicae Tyrnavienses, 1763, 1766, Budapest, ELTE Egyetemi Könyvtár és Archívum

Első közlés: Réthly Ferenc: Időjárási események és elemi csapások Magyarországon 1701–1800. Budapest, 1970 p. 207, 222

The first Hungarian data graphic

The first flow map. Imre Milecz, 1773

Milecz Imre (Emericus): Mappa Regni Hungariae demonstrans universas caesareo regias salis stationes. Regis Hungariae, Croatiae, Schlavonia, magni item Principatui Transilvaniae ingremiatas, Posonii, 1773. OSZK
Azonosította: Papp-Váry Árpád, Klinghammer Ferenc