PATTERN RECOGNITION: Giving life to the world of numbers
Hans Rosling made statistics come alive, presenting even the most involved subjects in an entertaining way
The great Hans Rosling once said: “There’s nothing boring about statistics, especially not today, when we can make the data sing.” And sing the data did. Rosling, who died from pancreatic cancer last week, aged 68, was more than a statistician; he was that rare kind of genius who could explain to us even the most complex of subjects.The Swedish professor called himself an “edutainer”. His first talk at a TED conference, in 2006, gave him rock star status, but it was his 2010 documentary for the to show humanity’s progress in the past 200 years in 20 countries — all in a mere four minutes. It was fascinating and awe-inspiring. And it was just numbers. But Rosling had a gift for making numbers sing. I’m fascinated by the lives of famous scientists, particularly mathematicians. Their work is highly technical and inexplicably complex, and requires an education in numbers that is beyond us ordinary folk.
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