hon322f

Escape from flatland

Offered Spring 2007.

Student comments:

"I was a little scared after I signed up for this seminar (Data? Technology? Heaven forbid, NUMBERS!?), but I'm very glad that I did."
"I enjoyed the interesting data sets"
"Who could imagine playing with hurricane data, a fourth dimensional cube, and a fourth dimension sphere, or even a mobius strip, all in one semester?"
"This is the only class where I get to explore what I want to explore"
"Unexpectedly this class made me realise that there are millions of topics out there that people are researching and comparing data in"
"I enjoyed learning different ways to display information and how to picture higher dimensional objects"
"I enjoyed being given enough instruction to play with the programs myself and then turned loose to make my own observations"

Wednesday, 2–3pm. Ross 115.

Hadley Wickham, hon322f@had.co.nz
Snedecor 125. Office hours after class, or by appointment.

A great way of understanding what’s going on with data is to LOOK at the data. If we print things out, or look at a fixed plot on our computer screen, we are trapped in a flatland of only 2 dimensions. How can we escape and explore beyond the flats? Are we limited to only to thinking in 3 dimensions, or can we expand our brains to think in more?

In this course we will investigate a number of ways to explore data graphically, with a focus on high-dimensional methods, that is, methods that can explore the relationship between many different variables. Most statistics courses use mathematics and numbers to do this, but we will use pictures, movies and interaction instead.

Objectives

Learn how to explore data visually
Start to think in more than 3 dimensions
Learn how to use interactive graphics software
Understand the ideas behind the graphical methods

Assessment

You'll be expected to write a one page (typed, single-spaced, 12-pt font, 1" margins) response every two weeks. The point of it is to get you thinking about the material outside of class, so hopefully it will stick in your heads better.

You are free to write anything related to class, but I would be particularly interested to see:

What you learned in class, what you thought was important, interesting or useful.
Any questions you have about the material, or potential uses.
What didn't you understand? What do you want to find out more about?
Your attempts to ask and ask a question of a dataset (I may ask you to focus on this from now on.)

Schedule of topics and assignments

10 Jan. What is flatland, and how do we escape?
17 Jan. Introduction to GGobi
24 Jan. The tour and high-dimensional games (hands on). First homework due.
31 Jan. Storm tracks across the Caribbean: more complicated linking schemes. Second homework due.
7 Feb. Storm tracks: local and temporal trends.
14 Feb. Guest lecturer: Heike Hofmann
21 Feb. Diamonds
28 Feb. Exploring the IMDB movie database. Third homework due.
7 Mar. More high-dimensional shapes.
14 Mar. Spring break.
21 Mar. Interactive graphics on the web
28 Mar. Interactive graphics on the web (by you)
4 Apr. Does music that sounds the same look the same?
11 Apr.
18 Apr. Converting data
25 Apr. Book discussion: Flatland a romance of many directions

Data sets

Make sure to right-click and choose save as.

Australian crabs data
4d cube for face-off
Tips data with extra variables
Storm tracks
Diamonds data (for mondrian)
Movies data: for GGobi (csv), for Mondrian (tsv)
High-D geometric objects
Music data from my major professor, and case study. Music data generated by me

Other useful/interesting links

Disability Policy

Iowa State University complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. If you have a disability and anticipate needing accommodations in this course, please contact one of the instructors within the first two weeks of the semester. Retroactive requests for accommodations will not be honored. Before meeting with an instructor, you will need to obtain a SAAR form with recommendations for accommodations from the Disability Resources Office, located in Room 1076 on the main floor of the Student Services Building. Their telephone number is 515-294-6624.