Beautiful Science : Picturing data, inspiring insight

Interesting exhibition at the British Library looking at how scientists turn numbers into pictures both to explain their findings and to develop ideas.
 
There was a lovely section looking at how the idea of the tree of life had been used both as a metaphor and a scientific diagram linking it to the idea of the Great Chain of Being. It also made me think of the idea of family trees and the Jesse tree.

I was fascinated by the section on health matters including the use of rose diagrams by Florence Nightingale to demonstrate how most soldiers in the Crimean War were dying from preventable diseases.  I loved the juxtaposition of the maps used to chart outbreak of cholera which lead to the discovery of its cause and a modern interactive world map showing how an epidemic would react under difference circumstances.

The final section was on weather charting and it was a neat link to have had Darwin as an example of the tree of life in the first section and charts by the Captain of the Beagle in this last section, who is considered the grandfather of the weather service. 

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