You signed in with another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.You signed out in another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.You switched accounts on another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.Dismiss alert
The best visualizations don't just display data — they **change how people think and act**. Here are three that transformed public health, military strategy, and epidemiology.
301
+
---
302
+
<!-- _class: scale-80 -->
302
303
303
-
</div>
304
+
# Nightingale's rose diagram (1858): preventable deaths in the Crimean War
Nightingale's polar area chart showed that **preventable diseases** (blue) killed far more soldiers than wounds (red) — convincing the army to prioritize sanitation.
304
309
305
310
---
306
311
<!-- _class: scale-90 -->
307
312
308
-
# Florence Nightingale's rose diagram (1858)
313
+
# Snow's cholera map (1854): founding modern epidemiology
Nightingale's polar area chart showed that **preventable diseases** (blue) killed far more British soldiers than battle wounds (red). This visualization convinced the army to prioritize sanitation — saving thousands of lives.
317
+
Deaths **clustered around the Broad Street pump** — disproving the "miasma" theory and proving cholera was waterborne.
313
318
314
319
---
315
320
<!-- _class: scale-90 -->
316
321
317
-
# John Snow's cholera map (1854)
322
+
# Minard's map of Napoleon's Russian campaign (1869)
> *"The best statistical graphic ever drawn."* — Edward Tufte
320
327
321
-
Snow plotted cholera deaths on a map of London's Soho district. The deaths **clustered around the Broad Street water pump** — disproving the "miasma" theory and founding modern epidemiology.
328
+
Six variables in one image: army size, location, direction, temperature, latitude, and longitude. The army shrank from 422,000 to 10,000.
329
+
330
+
---
331
+
332
+
# The periodic table (1869): organizing all known matter
Called "the best statistical graphic ever drawn" — this single image encodes **six variables**: army size, location, direction, temperature, latitude, and longitude. The army shrank from 422,000 to 10,000.
345
+
Each point represents a brain activation pattern; color indicates cognitive domain. Dimensionality reduction reveals how different mental processes cluster and overlap. *(Owen et al., 2021)*
0 commit comments