Seeing, Exploring, Explaining, and Sharing our Universe

Presentation Date: Monday, December 2, 2019. Location: American Museum of Natural History, New York City. Abstract: Scientists show each other pictures. Sure, we also show each other equations, and words, but we communicate most rapidly using pictures. In modern science, these “pictures” can be used to understand and explore phenomena in new ways, and to explain what we see to colleagues. In this talk, I will demonstrate how traditional and modern approaches to visualizing information are best combined to leverage human creativity in our quest to understand the world around us. Specifically, I will use examples from geography, astronomy, and medical imaging to demonstrate the power of high-dimensional thinking for scientific communication—both at professional and outreach levels.