Encyclopedia Titanica

Visualising the Titanic disaster

Significance

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The article explores the historical and modern uses of data visualisation to understand and depict the RMS Titanic disaster. It begins with the tragedy itself, describing the sinking in April 1912, which resulted in 1,502 fatalities out of 2,224 passengers and crew. This event left behind a wealth of data, including passenger and crew demographics, survival rates, and details of the ship’s design and lifeboats.

by Michael Friendly, Jürgen Symanzik, Ortac Onder
Key Points

A key focus is on a groundbreaking visualisation by G. Bron, published in The Sphere in May 1912, which utilised back-to-back bar charts to show survival and death statistics by class, gender, and age. This chart is hailed as an innovative precursor to modern data graphics, like mosaic plots.

The article discusses the evolution of Titanic data in academic and educational contexts, starting with its inclusion in statistical software and datasets for predictive modelling and cross-validation exercises. Visualisation techniques such as mosaic plots, tree diagrams, and interactive graphics are examined for their role in presenting the Titanic data in meaningful ways.

It also highlights modern infographics, such as one created by Andrew Barr and Richard Johnson, which combine numbers, text, and visuals to tell a cohesive story of the disaster.

The authors emphasise the lasting impact of the Titanic tragedy on data science, visualisation, and storytelling, celebrating it as a model for creative and informative graphical representation. They conclude that the Titanic data remain a valuable resource for exploring and innovating in data visualisation and storytelling.

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This item is not available to read on Encyclopedia Titanica, but we have included it as a reference, provided a brief summary of the key points, and linked to the original source to help readers interested in the finer details of the Titanic story.

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