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I'm a big fan of Bret Victor's thinking, but this part struck me as indicative of the criticisms he'll receive: "here, they are discussing some relationships:

I'm a big fan of Bret Victor's thinking, but this part struck me as indicative of the criticisms he'll receive: "here, they are discussing some relationships: the regular latice, L grows linearly with n, we see L growing linearly with n, and we see C is staying constant. In the random network, L grows logarithmically, and we see L growing logarithmically, we see C going as a reciprocal relationship. When we read the word "logarithmic", we don't need to reconstruct that relationship in our head, you can just see it" Does the average reader of Nature need to be shown a graph of what a linear, constant, logarithmic, and inverse relationship looks like? I don't think so. That said, I imagine there are highly terse and technical ideas that cannot be simply represented in the current mediums of publication and which could benefit greatly using a presentation using an interactive widgets, making more complex ideas more easily communicable.

tsunamifury 13y ago
The average reader can probably easily imagine y=2 to y=2x to y=X^2 relationship, but its becomes harder when the rates change. Visualizing y=N to y=Nx to y=x^N where N is any given number is fairly hard to see accurately in my head since it adds a new dimension (time) to the visualization. Giving a slider where N can be visualized over time shows how changes in N accelerates y=x^N away y=Nx. These compound complexities better seen in interactive widget as the average mind is not well equipped to visualize them.
gridspy 13y ago
When introducing a new visualization, First you show familiar curves such as y=x and y=x^2 as context for more complex curves that follow.
swalsh 13y ago
The point is now someone who isn't the average reader of Nature can understand the concept... Sometimes I feel like nerds kind of enjoy the exclusivity provided by "cryptic" notation. What Bret is doing is not genius level stuff, he's just doing what a lot of people don't have the balls to do. Attempt to make "hard" things easy enough for "regular" people to understand by appealing to the right side of their brain.
- anfedorov 13y ago
  Jargon and specialized notation is sometimes cryptic as an unintentional side effect of communicating efficiently between specialists. To suggest they should communicate findings in a less efficient way that's understandable by laymen who haven't put in the effort to learn the jargon / notation is silly. But I think Bret's point isn't that every research paper should be as verbose as an introductory textbook, but rather that interactive widgets can express ideas which text and static images in published papers can't.
  - lstamour 13y ago
    "interactive widgets can express ideas which text and static images in published papers can't" This. I had such hopes for iBooks, but then making widgets is hard, and making a Microsoft Word for widgets, harder still.
- felipeerias 13y ago
  Sorry, but that is not the point. This is not just about simplifying scientific notation so it is easier to digest for an untrained audience: it is about using tools to remove as much cognitive "shit work" as possible, so that our minds (including those of experts) are free to think the "unthinkable thoughts" of the title.
  - nightski 13y ago
    But you see, once you get the point where no one can draw pretty pictures about what you are working on requires your mind to be trained in this cognitive shit work (imagination?). So we'll develop a generation of people who never really learn to think creatively. Everything is just handed to you in a pretty little interactive diagram. Learning is hard, but that is a good thing. It's like exercise. The more you work at it, the easier it becomes.
    - FkZ 13y ago
      Are you seriously saying that if scientific papers contain parts that lets us visualize their contents interactivity human being will lose the ability to think creatively?
ameerkat 13y ago
The main take away I got here was that using a representation that decompresses the terse mathematical notation that you can interact with builds intuition about the system. If you already have the intuition then these interactions with the system add little value to your understanding of the system.
fit2rule 13y ago
> average reader of Nature His point is, this average can change, and its the quality of the symbols which deduces the set of readers.
mietek 13y ago
> Does the average reader of Nature need to be shown a graph of what a linear, constant, logarithmic, and inverse relationship looks like? I don't think so. Representing simple, familiar relationships visually and interactively may indeed not offer much clarity, just as a single brick may not offer much shelter.

tsunamifury 13y ago

The average reader can probably easily imagine y=2 to y=2x to y=X^2 relationship, but its becomes harder when the rates change. Visualizing y=N to y=Nx to y=x^N where N is any given number is fairly hard to see accurately in my head since it adds a new dimension (time) to the visualization. Giving a slider where N can be visualized over time shows how changes in N accelerates y=x^N away y=Nx. These compound complexities better seen in interactive widget as the average mind is not well equipped to visualize them.

gridspy 13y ago

When introducing a new visualization, First you show familiar curves such as y=x and y=x^2 as context for more complex curves that follow.

swalsh 13y ago

The point is now someone who isn't the average reader of Nature can understand the concept... Sometimes I feel like nerds kind of enjoy the exclusivity provided by "cryptic" notation. What Bret is doing is not genius level stuff, he's just doing what a lot of people don't have the balls to do. Attempt to make "hard" things easy enough for "regular" people to understand by appealing to the right side of their brain.

anfedorov 13y ago
Jargon and specialized notation is sometimes cryptic as an unintentional side effect of communicating efficiently between specialists. To suggest they should communicate findings in a less efficient way that's understandable by laymen who haven't put in the effort to learn the jargon / notation is silly. But I think Bret's point isn't that every research paper should be as verbose as an introductory textbook, but rather that interactive widgets can express ideas which text and static images in published papers can't.
- lstamour 13y ago
  "interactive widgets can express ideas which text and static images in published papers can't" This. I had such hopes for iBooks, but then making widgets is hard, and making a Microsoft Word for widgets, harder still.
felipeerias 13y ago
Sorry, but that is not the point. This is not just about simplifying scientific notation so it is easier to digest for an untrained audience: it is about using tools to remove as much cognitive "shit work" as possible, so that our minds (including those of experts) are free to think the "unthinkable thoughts" of the title.
- nightski 13y ago
  But you see, once you get the point where no one can draw pretty pictures about what you are working on requires your mind to be trained in this cognitive shit work (imagination?). So we'll develop a generation of people who never really learn to think creatively. Everything is just handed to you in a pretty little interactive diagram. Learning is hard, but that is a good thing. It's like exercise. The more you work at it, the easier it becomes.
  - FkZ 13y ago
    Are you seriously saying that if scientific papers contain parts that lets us visualize their contents interactivity human being will lose the ability to think creatively?

ameerkat 13y ago

The main take away I got here was that using a representation that decompresses the terse mathematical notation that you can interact with builds intuition about the system. If you already have the intuition then these interactions with the system add little value to your understanding of the system.

fit2rule 13y ago

> average reader of Nature His point is, this average can change, and its the quality of the symbols which deduces the set of readers.

mietek 13y ago

> Does the average reader of Nature need to be shown a graph of what a linear, constant, logarithmic, and inverse relationship looks like? I don't think so. Representing simple, familiar relationships visually and interactively may indeed not offer much clarity, just as a single brick may not offer much shelter.