Just recently, I came across this representation of the (global) temperature rise over the period 1850-2020, made by Professor Ed Hawkins from the University of Reading. It is powerful, artsy, reminding me of the Everything mural in the Zeeman Building at the University of Warwick, and visually most appealing, as a poster about the urgency for action, but it nonetheless remain a poor statistical graph in that it is a 2d presentation of a 1d dataset, the time series of the yearly average temperatures, missing the opportunity to exploit the second axis by eg taking a stripe of the Earth from South Pole to North Pole or the daily temperature throughout the year. And it is also lacking a scale, not only by omitting the dates on the first axis, but also by choosing an arbitrary if dramatic colour range [unable to incorporate the so-far ultimate 2023?!] (And with the visual appeal comes the danger of turning it into yet another marketing gimmick, hence cancelling its message.)
Archive for Zeeman building
warming stripes [but 1d]
Posted in Kids, pictures, Statistics, Travel with tags art, climate change, data graphics, Ed Hawkins, extreme temperatures, fresque, heating, Ian Davenport, Little Ice Age, University of Reading, University of Warwick, Zeeman building on April 15, 2024 by xi'anwhat have rough paths got to do with data science?
Posted in Statistics with tags colloquium, data science, rough paths, seminar, Terry Lyons, University of Warwick, Zeeman building on November 22, 2019 by xi'an
O’Bayes 2019 has now started!
Posted in pictures, Running, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags Coventry, Great-Britain, mathematics department, O'Bayes 2019, objective Bayes, subjective versus objective Bayes, summer of British conferences, University of Warwick, Warwickshire, Zeeman building on June 28, 2019 by xi'an
The O’Bayes 2019 conference in Warwick University has now started, with about 100 participants meeting over four days (plus one of tutorials) in the Zeeman maths building of the University. Quite a change of location and weather when compared with the previous one in Austin. As an organiser I hope all goes well at the practical level and want to thank the other persons who helped me towards this goal, first and foremost Paula Matthews who solved web and lodging and planning issues all over these past months, as well as Mark Steel and Cristiano Villa. As a member of the scientific committee, I am looking forward the talks and discussants along the coming four days, again hoping all speakers and discussants show up and are not hindered by travel or visa issues…
the new building!
Posted in pictures, Travel, University life with tags bicycle, blackboard, Mathematical Sciences Building, office, University of Warwick, Zeeman building on October 22, 2018 by xi'an
The Department of Statistics at Warwick has moved to a new MSB building, next to the Zeeman building, with a lot of light and open space, including a sort of atrium in the centre. It remains to be seen how comfortable this new glassy structure will prove, in hot and cold weather, and how it will stand the test of years (months?!). It seems the place was not designed purposely for mathematicians and statisticians, as many are complaining of the lack of blackboards (and even of whiteboards!) versus an overwhelming number of voracious screens. (Funny enough, the early video selling the building included these blackboards!) And it is unclear how so many glass panes can be contributing to the carbon neutral goal. Still, so far, I enjoyed the light and luminosity of my office, but this may change in the rare event of a grey day… (And no indoor place to store bicycles! But I did recover my bike where I had left it last time.)
LMS Invited Lecture Series / CRISM Summer School 2018
Posted in pictures, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags computational statistics, Coventry, CRiSM, group picture, London Mathematical Society, summer school, University of Warwick, Zeeman building on July 12, 2018 by xi'an
