Data

Mathematics Awareness Month

April is Mathematics Awareness Month.  Sponsored by professional and educational organizations like the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America, the American Statistical Association,  and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematicians, Mathematics Awareness Month aims to increase awareness and promote the utility of mathematics through activities, contests, and public discourse.

This year’s theme is Mathematics, Statistics, and the Data Deluge.  The application of statistics is playing an ever-increasing role in both theory and practice, and the overwhelming amount of data available to us now is dramatically changing what we can do and how we do it.

There are a number of linked resources to this year’s theme at the Math Awareness Month website.  And this story from Stephen Wolfram offers an interesting tale about the unexpected application of personal data.

In addition, there are plenty of resources to previous MAMs here, like “Mathematics and Sports” and “Mathematics and the Internet” here:  http://www.mathaware.org/about.mam.html#previous.

How will you be celebrating Mathematics Awareness Month?

By patrick honner, ago

An Autobiography in Data

Stephen Wolfram has given the world Mathematica, MathWorld, and Wolfram Alpha.  His latest contribution to the evolution of mathematics is a highly compelling analysis of 20 years of personal data.

http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/03/the-personal-analytics-of-my-life/

Wolfram has collected data on his emails, his phone calls, and even his keystrokes for the past two decades.  In the above piece, Wolfram takes a look at what that data has to say about his life.  Why did his sleeping habits change around 2002?  What time of day are you most likely to catch him on the phone?  What percentage of keystrokes over the past 20 years have been backspaces?

The results are interesting not merely because Wolfram is such a fascinating person, but because of the potential personal data collection has for all of us.  What sorts of data would tell your story?

What a wonderful idea to explore!  Thanks for sharing, Mr. Wolfram.  You’ve given us a lot to think about.

By patrick honner, ago

Google Public Data Explorer

Google’s Public Data Explorer is a great, free resource for students and teachers interested in data science and statistics.

http://www.google.com/publicdata/home

The site allows you to create custom graphs of available data sets, making it easy to experiment with different representations and explore the meaning of data.

There are several data sets available to play around with.   The OECD Factbook alone provides a wealth of raw data on education, energy, employment, population and migration, and many other categories.  There are also data sets available from the U.S. Census and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.  There appears to be support for using your own data sets, as well.

The data can be represented in a variety of ways:  histograms, line graphs, and even dynamic time series are all available.  It’s a great way to play around with data, and to build skill and intuition in data analysis, interpretation, and representation.

By patrick honner, ago

Bike Data Visualization

This is a cool visualization of bicycle usage in London:

http://www.digitalurban.org/2011/02/london-cycle-flows-sociable-physics.html

On October 4th, 2010, there was a public transit strike in London, which maximized bike usage in the city.

The creators claim that the flashes of light that represent the bikes move in accordance with the actual speed and path of the bikes they represent.

An innovative representation that puts me in mind of graph theory and networking!

By patrick honner, ago

Applications of Government Data

This is a nice resource from The Guardian that highlights some of the ways developers are making government data accessible to citizens.

http://goo.gl/00jmo

The projects include housing price analysis, roadway usage, government spending, and aggregation of community information.

The site wheredoesmymoneygo.org is especially interesting:  slide the bar to your yearly income, and see just how much of your salary is spent on education, health services, defense, and other categories.

Lots of applications to play around with, and plenty of food for thought!

By patrick honner, ago
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