This is a guest post I wrote for the IMA Blog – Dr. Darren Dancey: "Maths – There's an App For That!" This North West regional talk was delivered by Manchester Metropolitan University's Computer Science lecturer Darren Dancey, whose teaching specialisms include programming and artificial...
This post is one of a series of articles adapted from my university dissertation on data visualisation — see the rest of the series. Digitally, colour can be defined by a set of values defining the level of Red, Green and Blue in each pixel. The number of values between "empty" and "full" denotes...
This post is one of a series of articles adapted from my university dissertation on data visualisation — see the rest of the series. Pi (π), the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, is a mathematical phenomenon. It is found in a massive variety of fields such as statistics, geometry,...
This post is one of a series of articles adapted from my university dissertation on data visualisation — see the rest of the series. For systems of 3 ODEs (Ordinary Differential Equations), there are two ways of plotting the results of outcomes given initial conditions. The first is to plot each of...
This post is one of a series of articles adapted from my university dissertation on data visualisation — see the rest of the series. Limit cycles are interesting systems whereby the solution to a set of differential equations produces a phase portrait whose directional flow enters a cycle and gets...
This post is one of a series of articles adapted from my university dissertation on data visualisation — see the rest of the series. The single pendulum is a simple system to model, as it is simply the force of the weight of the bob acting with respect to gravity: Simple gravity pendulum diagram,...
This post is one of a series of articles adapted from my university dissertation on data visualisation — see the rest of the series. Recorded sound is taken in analogue form, converted to digital form and stored as binary. The decimal numeric representation of each of the samples can be used to...
This post is one of a series of articles adapted from my university dissertation on data visualisation — see the rest of the series. Tag clouds are a great way of dynamically visualising the author-defined keyword content of a blog or news feed. I created a system which would store tags linked to...
This post is one of a series of articles adapted from my university dissertation on data visualisation — see the rest of the series. I undertook a challenge to hack (not in the illegal, immoral meaning of the word) some public transport data and find a way of making it useful. I chose the motorway...
This post is one of a series of articles adapted from my university dissertation on data visualisation — see the rest of the series. Around the time I started this project I became an avid Rubik's Cube solver. I practised lots and used to record my solve times using an Android app on my smartphone....
This post is one of a series of articles adapted from my university dissertation on data visualisation — see the rest of the series. I navigated to the list of my Facebook friends (facebook.com/friends.php) and removed the default filtering (usually shows recently active friends) so that the list...
This post is one of a series of articles adapted from my university dissertation on data visualisation — see the rest of the series. School children are taught the order of the powers of ten the same way they are taught to count to ten, say the alphabet or recite their times tables. There is barely...
This post is one of a series of articles adapted from my university dissertation on data visualisation — see the rest of the series. There are many ways to generate visualisations using any of the languages I have talked about so far, even some in combination with each other. Sometimes the method...
This post is one of a series of articles adapted from my university dissertation on data visualisation — see the rest of the series. The Internet is a global WAN (wide area network), connecting a system of computer networks all operating under the same protocol, TCP/IP (Transmission Control...
Having completed my degree, I wanted to share some of the work I did as part of my final year project on data visualisation. As this shocking graph indicates... I've prepared several articles which I'll publish here. All posts in the series will be tagged with datavis-project.
I'm supposed to be revising for my final year exams, and the Rubik's Cube isn't enough of a distraction, apparently, so I've taken up the crafty mathsy hobby of constructing 3D fractals. The Menger Sponge is a cube with a hole in the middle, made up of smaller cubes, each with a hole in the middle....
I've had a hectic week this week trying to get all my assignments in. I had a MATLAB assignment due in on Thursday and a Java one due in today. The MATLAB one involved two questions: the first was a banking system which calculated interest and mortgage payments; the second was an animation of a...
I did quite a bit of kayaking in January; in Wales, the Lake District and more locally in the North West of England. I think the first one of the new year was the Dee in Llangollen in North Wales, which I did a few years ago while doing my 4-star course. I was incredibly excited when we first got...
I was asked by the chairman of the canoe club if I would like to attend the BCU whitewater student safety seminar with him and the vice chairman, being a fresher who is keen to commit to kayaking and to the club and likely to be seriously involved in the club over the next few years. I jumped at...
I'm now at the end of my third week of university. I've moved away from home and now live in halls of residence in Manchester, which is a completely new experience for me. I can cook and generally fend for myself but it's still very different from being at home. I'm having a wicked time out...
Yesterday was officially my last parkour jam in Sheffield. I'm moving to Manchester next Saturday so I told the guys that it would be the last time I'd be training with them all before I go away to uni, and we had a great day of training in Sheffield, starting at the university and working our...
