4 ms·
Just note that this friendly graph employs the bad practice of not having the vertical axis origin at 0, which visually exaggerates the change.
by avian 8y ago
Just note that this friendly graph employs the bad practice of not having the vertical axis origin at 0, which visually exaggerates the change.
- pqhwan 8y agoNot necessarily a bad practice. Most of the graphs I've seen use this technique, do so to make the changes in value visible, not to deceive the viewer.
- barrkel 8y agoThat's just it: if the changes are only visible if you chop off the bottom of the graph, the probability they aren't significant increases.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kolpa 8y agoHow would you feel if your body temperature increased 3%? Barely visible in a 0-based graph.
- barrkel 8y agoWhat is a 3% change in body temperature? From absolute zero? (My point is that temperature is probably an odd man out in graph terms, our usual reference points are not actually at zero.)
- mikeash 8y agoIf the change is invisible on a 0-based graph, maybe the change isn’t so important.... This one only exaggerates things by a factor of 2, at least.
- contravariant 8y agoThe cosmic microwave background is invisible on a 0-based image.
- mikeash 8y agoOnly if you’re trying to show the CMB and galaxies in the same image. Since doing so would be misleading as to the brightness of the CMB, that seems like a feature, not a bug.
- contravariant 8y agoNo, if you insist on a uniform colormap that includes 0K (or whatever measurement you're showing the CMB with) then there's absolutely no way to make the CMB visible. The average temperature is 2.72548 K with variations on the order of 0.00057 K. Its incredible uniformity is one of its more important features.
- mikeash 8y agoOh, you meant variations in the CMB. I thought you just meant making the CMB visible.
- kolpa 8y ago0 is only relevant for linear utility/impact functions The effect of an isotope isn't necessarily linear in its magnitude from 0. The baseline should be something that matters, like maximum safe dose.
- mikeash 8y agoIf you have a baseline and a scale that indicates an actual effect, then by all means use it. That’s not the case here, nor has it been the case for any other such graph I can remember seeing. Universally, the bottom is chosen as the minimum value in the data being plotted.
- 8y ago
- jackpirate 8y agoI disagree. It's a multiplicative factor vertically centered to 1. Seems better to me than if it had been aligned to 0.