Jaime Lin
4/1/2023
Physics Paper on Visualization
Visualization, “the representation of an object, situation, or set of information as a chart or
other image” according to Oxford Languages, has and will always be a major element in our
daily lives and in education. In laymen’s terms, visualization is simply transforming an idea or
set of data into the form of a visual. Examples of visuals include graphs, pictures, charts, and etc.
The earliest uses of visualization traces all the way back to 30,000 to 10,000 B.C on the walls of
caves in France and Spain, at the time visuals were use to keep track of simple data and
communicate ideas to one another, not much different to the uses of visuals today. Though
visualization is all around us, many do not realize its significance to our society. Taking the
company Google for example, the amount of data received every second is tremendous and
would be irrelevant to present in numerical form. This is when visualization comes in, numbers
turned into percentage or graphs can to a better extent show the position of which the data stands
in relation to the whole set of data and present a clearer information for the receiver to
understand. (Examples of visualization are below)
In the subject area of Physics, visualization plays a major role throughout the whole
practice and study. When organizing a group of information or data, visualization can be used to
present it in a shorter way. This technique has proven to be helpful amongst students to assist
them in learning new knowledge and creating a better understanding. A study, Effects of Text
Illustrations, was done by researchers W. Howard Levie and Richard Lentz and after 55 study
results conclude that visuals supporting the text were beneficial in 98% of all of the studies. In
the study of physics, experiments and data collecting is indispensable and drawing graphs can
help us better analyze our information in the next step. Take thermal physics for example, having
to describe the changes of molecules through the different state of matters using words is most
likely to be ineffective and complicated for the receiver to understand. But if three simple picture
Jaime Lin
4/1/2023
Physics Paper on Visualization
are used to show the difference receiver is more likely to understand instantly. Looking back at a
personal experience, when I was studying an experiment to measure heat capacity, it was quite
difficult to understand the instruction made of long sentences. But after looking into the pictures
that express each step, my personal understanding became much clearer. In general, the use of
visualization can overall increase the productivity and effectiveness of our studies in Physics and
in our daily lives.