Comments on: Beautiful evidence

By: pushmedia1

pushmedia1 — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:55:23 +0000

“What’s the deal with the weird spots around 9 and 11 on the US graph?”

I suppose your question is proof of superiority of these pictures over the Kenworthy ones.

By: swong

swong — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:04:49 +0000

One of the first TED presentations I saw had a presenter showing something like life expectancy and fertility rates among a big group of countries on a standard 2-axis graph. As he rolled time forward, the points slid around the graph, making it really easy to spot long-term trends.

What’s the deal with the weird spots around 9 and 11 on the US graph?

By: pushmedia1

pushmedia1 — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:52:40 +0000

Can people read those 3d graphs though?

Oh, you’re second idea is what was done by Sal-i-martin in his world income distribution paper. I forgot all about that. It’s pretty readable. I’ll add it as an update to the post.

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:11:39 +0000

I agree that looking at the whole distribution would be an improvement and Swong gave you the answer.

It shouldn’t be too hard, given that one already has the data, to show the distribution for each year. Just put your regular normal smoothed density on two of the axis (or a histogram if you prefer) and put time on the third. Sounds like a really neat idea.

However, if you just want to compare two points in time, which you might, then you could just plot the two distributions on the same x-axis so you don’t have to deal with weird 3-d perspective issues.

By: swong

swong — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:51:49 +0000

That data is begging for a TED-style treatment. Gimme something on a web site where you can show 3 or 4 dimensions at the same time.

Might be handy if you want to help convince some people that there aren’t billions* of poor Americans trapped in shanty towns**.

*Yes, billions.
**Like Detroit.