
Diagrams That Changed the World - ghosh
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/21/100-diagrams-that-changed-the-world/
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xerophtye
Those are some really interesting pictures. Amonsgst the many, these few
really caught my attention: 1) The Rosetta Stone (so THAT's how historians got
an idea how to decipher hieroglyphs. i always wondered about that) 2) The
Leonardo Da vinci diagram. (I see it lla the time on tv but never really
understood what it was about until now. Its about human proportions ) 3) The
lunar eclipse diagram. Because as far as i know, that was way before any
telescopes were invented. Those guys did everything by observations and maths!
4) The Copernicus diagram. It's pretty cool because it was one of the first
diagrams in the west that opposed the "earth is centre of the universe"
concept. But what is more interesting about this is that Copernicus himself
cites the work of Arab astronomers who have been challenging that model based
on "The mathematics doesn't add up to your model of earth being the centre.
The maths denies that the sun revolves around the earth."

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bazzargh
I like the story of how Linear B was deciphered better
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22782620](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22782620)
\- no Rosetta stone, but more like cryptanalysis; Alice Kober built frequency
tables and discovered patterns which (with a bit of insight and guesswork) led
to Michael Ventris cracking the code.

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xerophtye
Kinda reminds me of the OTHER major cryptanalysis feat of the time! The
breaking of the enigma! (but they built a computer for that) so this story is
way more awesome!

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josephagoss
Whenever I see things like this I try to imagine what sort of common knowledge
exited around that time and what the reactions of the people might have been.

Some are more immediately powerful than others of course.

I can imagine De Humani Corporis Fabrica being extremely startling to the
people of that time. In the modern day might that type of leap might even be
considered contemporary art.

Copernicus's "Heliocentric Universe" is probably one of the most powerful
drawings on the list, can you imagine the paradigm shift these views forced
upon the world? I don't think we have had any leap of similar magnitude since
the atomic age.

I really really love this, its like looking back in time.

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petepete
The Beauty of Diagrams (an excellent BBC4 documentary) is worth tracking down
if this kind of thing floats your boat.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w5675/episodes/guide](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w5675/episodes/guide)

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hamsterlicious
I would also recommend that interested readers check out the Places & Spaces
exhibit ([http://scimaps.org/](http://scimaps.org/)) and _Atlas of Science:
Visualizing What We Know_ ([https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/atlas-
science](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/atlas-science)).

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bestham
The diagrammatic London "Tube map"[1] by Harry Beck is ought to be on that
list together with the previously mentioned Charles Minard diagram of
Napoleons invasion of Russia[2].

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_map#Beck.27s_maps](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_map#Beck.27s_maps)
[2]:
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Minard.pn...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Minard.png)

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moocowduckquack
On this theme, I love Charles Minard's diagram of Napoleon's invasion of
Russia where the width of the line is how many people are still left -
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Minard.pn...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Minard.png)

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bradleyland
I'm surprised that the Feynman Diagram didn't make the list. It's not a
specific diagram, but it's certainly the best example of a more recent diagram
that has had profound impact on the way we view quantum interactions.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_diagram](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_diagram)

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mahoro
Haha, that host is blocked by Great Russian Firewall.

