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cscheid 1 days ago [-]
Seriously, though, there's one nomogram you (yes you) should know about and have it well-enough engraved in your mind's eye that you can use it with eyes closed. A nomogram for Bayes' theorem: https://www.ovid.com/journals/nejm/abstract/10.1056/nejm1975...
That is cool, although it took me awhile to understand it because the posterior probability is on the left and the prior probability is on the right, and because it uses D=Disease and T=Test when I am used to seeing D=Data.
kqr 1 days ago [-]
Neat. This is based on Bayes' rule in its odds form[1], or more specifically in log-odds form, where evidence is additive[2].
Actually I find nomograms in log form really cool for making naive bayes classifiers 'explainable'. One can even add density for continuous values.
IMHO this is so much nicer than e.g. decisions tree visualizations (which everyone quotes for the most explainable AI models).
tgv 1 days ago [-]
It is indeed a great tool for visualizing Bayesian relations. You can even "feel" the sensitivity.
trunch 22 hours ago [-]
Can you use actually use it eyes closed? Never heard of that level of precision in the mind's eye
cscheid 5 hours ago [-]
You're right that I can't reproduce it like a phone camera could, and that the more precise you are the better (and it might be that with my eyes closed I'm doing something closer to addition in log-odds, like a separate comment responded), but this is super useful even coarsely. The visual affordance gives Bayes's theorem a physicality unlike any other tool I've found.
alnwlsn 1 days ago [-]
If you like things like this I can recommend you check out the Chris Staecker youtube channel. He covers all sorts of tools people used to use to do math before computers and calculators, and there are a lot of them. Some of the things people came up with to do what today would be considered relatively simple math are pretty clever, pretty complex, or both.
Somehow I looked at the article and completely missed that it was the introduction to Pynomo. My wife would back you up that I am not good at finding things...
You either love it or hate it, depending on how well your electromagnetics class was taught.
16 hours ago [-]
JKCalhoun 19 hours ago [-]
I am fascinated with nomograms ever since I stumbled upon them.
I spent some time earlier this year creating one for two resistors in parallel. I had seen it in an old book [1] but it was of poor quality.
(I tried to get Gemini writing to write code to generate an SVG file—but it was pretty poor compared to the one that I had done by hand in Affinity Designer.)
So far my children have not yet had to repeatedly perform complicated calculations, but I look forward to the day. I will definitely teach them with nomograms before we go on to spreadsheets!
Another type of almost-nomogram that's great and practical is the slide rule. In particular in the kitchen, where it makes it really easy to translate proportions. https://entropicthoughts.com/kitchen-slide-rule
dostick 18 hours ago [-]
Also those who want to quit doing drugs should have one.
cckolon 23 hours ago [-]
The US Navy still uses nomograms for chemistry control on nuclear reactors!
[1]: https://entropicthoughts.com/bayes-rule-odds-form
[2]: https://entropicthoughts.com/sensitivity-counts-against-you
IMHO this is so much nicer than e.g. decisions tree visualizations (which everyone quotes for the most explainable AI models).
https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisStaecker
https://github.com/lefakkomies/pynomo
You either love it or hate it, depending on how well your electromagnetics class was taught.
I spent some time earlier this year creating one for two resistors in parallel. I had seen it in an old book [1] but it was of poor quality.
(I tried to get Gemini writing to write code to generate an SVG file—but it was pretty poor compared to the one that I had done by hand in Affinity Designer.)
[1] https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/T...
Another type of almost-nomogram that's great and practical is the slide rule. In particular in the kitchen, where it makes it really easy to translate proportions. https://entropicthoughts.com/kitchen-slide-rule