Question: why do yopu love graphs so much

Grant Campbell answered on 9 Mar 2013:

@stubotthewuzzer. Thanks for your question. I love graphs because they show things that are not obvious just from the individual data points. In other words, they give “insight” – the ability to see into something, to see things that are not easy to see. In particular, they give insight into how one thing relates to another, how one thing affects another. Seeing new things in this way – well, that’s what learning is, isn’t it? And I like learning new things, especially things nobody ever knew before. So ultimately that’s why I like graphs – because I learn interesting new things from them.
Can I think of an example?? Umm…. Well, I particularly like graphs that show experimental results and predictions on the same graph, and that show that the experiments agree with the predictions! One of the most important things about wheat kernels are their hardness – hardness affects breakage, not suprisingly. I have developed some equations that predict how hardness affects the size of the flour particles we get when we mill wheat – and my equations give pretty good predictions!
But the other thing is when the experimental results don’t agree with what you expect. That means there’s something else going on, something you haven’t already thought about – and that’s where there’s the opportunity to learn new things, to gain knowledge and understanding that’s deeper than what you already have. So, for example, wheat kernel shape also affects breakage. So, where my equations based on hardness don’t predict quite accurately, I’ve been able to look at what’s left over and from that learn things about how kernel shape also affects milling. (Basically, long, thin kernels have more bran, and bran tends to stay as larger particles on milling. This is a new finding, so If you have read this far, you are one of the first people in the world to know this!)
Writing that reminds me of a long time ago, when I was doing a summer job in a milk powder testing laboratory, and I helped a scientist with some work on vitamins, and he said at one point “We’re the first people in the world to see Vitamin E acetate fluoresce!” That was quite an exciting thought. We saw it from the results plotted on a graph.