The Joy of Stats
Nishant Sinha
Kennesaw Mountain High School The Joy of Stats One statistical trend I could identify from Dan Hillman’s film The Joy of Stats was the growing difference in the quality of life between eastern and western countries for a span of about 138 years, beginning in 1810. The primary cause of this trend was the industrialization of western countries such as England and the United States, leading to higher life expectancy and greater income (Mayr, 2017). Following the growth of the quality of life gap, a contradictory trend began in 1948 when the practice of colonialism ended. Since then the quality of life gap between eastern and western countries has been decreasing due to the increased export of valuable resources such as oil from developing countries (Hillman, director, 2010). Another trend I observed in the film is that smokers are more likely to develop lung cancer than people who do not smoke. The scientist credited with this discovery is Richard Doll; he conducted a study on the relationship between the amount of tobacco one uses and lung cancer involving 40,000 doctors. After plotting his data, Doll’s graphs showed a …show more content…
A bar graph allows the comparison of categorical variables through counts or measurements, such as population or average height by country. Another effective way of representing data is a histogram; a histogram allows shows data by density so a relationship between two quantitative variables is clearer. After we overlay normal, chi-squared, poisson, and other distributions on a histogram, we can find the probability of any individual event occurring. Although I was fascinated by all the charts and graphs in The Joy of Stats, Florence Nightingale’s polar area graph was the most interesting. I find it remarkable that she was able to depict many variables so simplistically within one figure, especially in such a
Nishant Sinha
Kennesaw Mountain High School The Joy of Stats One statistical trend I could identify from Dan Hillman’s film The Joy of Stats was the growing difference in the quality of life between eastern and western countries for a span of about 138 years, beginning in 1810. The primary cause of this trend was the industrialization of western countries such as England and the United States, leading to higher life expectancy and greater income (Mayr, 2017). Following the growth of the quality of life gap, a contradictory trend began in 1948 when the practice of colonialism ended. Since then the quality of life gap between eastern and western countries has been decreasing due to the increased export of valuable resources such as oil from developing countries (Hillman, director, 2010). Another trend I observed in the film is that smokers are more likely to develop lung cancer than people who do not smoke. The scientist credited with this discovery is Richard Doll; he conducted a study on the relationship between the amount of tobacco one uses and lung cancer involving 40,000 doctors. After plotting his data, Doll’s graphs showed a …show more content…
A bar graph allows the comparison of categorical variables through counts or measurements, such as population or average height by country. Another effective way of representing data is a histogram; a histogram allows shows data by density so a relationship between two quantitative variables is clearer. After we overlay normal, chi-squared, poisson, and other distributions on a histogram, we can find the probability of any individual event occurring. Although I was fascinated by all the charts and graphs in The Joy of Stats, Florence Nightingale’s polar area graph was the most interesting. I find it remarkable that she was able to depict many variables so simplistically within one figure, especially in such a