I was just writing a little piece involving some elementary charting and was reminded that my statistics teacher, Dr. Frank Oliver, will be turning in his grave. I looked him up and he sadly passed away and is seemingly not remembered for much, apart from winning an award for the nation’s most boring lecturer by presenting one on “Cofficiency Correlations”. One wonders if, in the days of the rock star status of, Carol Vorderman and Rachal Riley, it would have attracted such attention; it seems to me to be part of the legitimisation of the idea that you can opt out of maths. My thoughts reminded me that bar charts & histograms must have 0,0 illustrated, their bars must be the same width and that line charts (or graphs as we called them) cannot be used interchangeably with bar charts. He will be remembered by some as an enthusiast for scientific economics, as a Labour County Councillor, and strangely for those that know or knew it, the Warden of Mardon Hall, allegedly the inspiration for Rowling’s Gryffndor House. Google also reports his legacy as a benefactor to Exeter’s classical music world; it wasn’t an aspect of his life that I saw much of, possible because of a lack of interest.
Nought, Nought