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This book is written for the love of numbers. It tells their story,
shows how they were invented and used to quantify our world, and
explains what quantitative data mean for our lives. It aspires to
contribute to overall numeracy through a tour de force presentation
of the production, use, and evolution of data. Understanding our
physical world, our economies, and our societies through
quantification has been a persistent feature of human evolution.
This book starts with a narrative on why and how our ancestors were
driven to the invention of number, which is then traced to the
eventual arrival at our number system. This is followed by a
discussion of how numbers were used for counting, how they enabled
the measurement of physical quantities, and how they led to the
estimation of man-made and abstract notions in the socio-economic
domain. As data don't fall like manna from the sky, a unique
feature of this book is that it explains from a teacher's
perspective how they're really conceived in our minds, how they're
actually produced from individual observations, and how this
defines their meaning and interpretation. It discusses the
significance of standards, the use of taxonomies, and clarifies a
series of misconceptions regarding the making of data. The book
then describes the switch to a new research paradigm and its
implications, highlights the arrival of microdata, illustrates
analytical uses of data, and closes with a look at the future of
data and our own role in it.
This book is written for the love of numbers. It tells their story,
shows how they were invented and used to quantify our world, and
explains what quantitative data mean for our lives. It aspires to
contribute to overall numeracy through a tour de force presentation
of the production, use, and evolution of data. Understanding our
physical world, our economies, and our societies through
quantification has been a persistent feature of human evolution.
This book starts with a narrative on why and how our ancestors were
driven to the invention of number, which is then traced to the
eventual arrival at our number system. This is followed by a
discussion of how numbers were used for counting, how they enabled
the measurement of physical quantities, and how they led to the
estimation of man-made and abstract notions in the socio-economic
domain. As data don't fall like manna from the sky, a unique
feature of this book is that it explains from a teacher's
perspective how they're really conceived in our minds, how they're
actually produced from individual observations, and how this
defines their meaning and interpretation. It discusses the
significance of standards, the use of taxonomies, and clarifies a
series of misconceptions regarding the making of data. The book
then describes the switch to a new research paradigm and its
implications, highlights the arrival of microdata, illustrates
analytical uses of data, and closes with a look at the future of
data and our own role in it.
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