Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

[Phys-L] Re: Charts or Graphs, and other Excel stuff



----- Original Message -----
From: "Bernard Cleyet" <anngeorg@PACBELL.NET>

So why not use software written by and for scientists? Write some
yourself, as did Peter Scott before microsoft?


Well easier said than done. First of all the way we interact (interface)
with computers has changed over the years. What was once acceptable is now
cumbersome and outdated. That is, we have all become use to the graphical
interfaces and the WYSIWYG of today's software--and that is especially true
of students. We have also become accustomed to the graphical power of
programs such as Excel where we can customize the appearance of our graphs
(charts ;-) in an almost unlimited number of ways.

It is easy enough to program the data analysis part. In fact if you look at
how Excel works it is pretty obvious that for power-law and exponential fits
it is doing linear fits to the data converted to log or log-log. This is
just what I had done in my simple Datafit program. The hint to this is that
if you have 0,0 or negative values in your data, you won't be offered those
fitting options. HOWEVER, what is difficult to program is all the graphics
AND printing options. It is no simple feat to rotate text 90 degrees for
the y-axis (for example) unless the particular software package you are
using has that as a built in function--(TrueBasic, my choice, does not.)
Anyway, to allow the use of any font, to resize fonts, to choose data point
size, color, options--to rescale axes, etc., etc. requires a lot of work.
Being able to graph multiple data sets on the same axes is another less than
obvious 'trick'.

In the end, the question is WHY bother? Most common spreadsheet programs
can do all of this AND students are already reasonably familiar with these.
Sure if you are doing graduate level work then you are going to want a
scientific graphing package--but then you probably have grant money to buy
such. Most schools have already leased Microsoft's or Corel's Office
products and most computers come with one or the other at very low prices.
I think the Student version of M$ Office can be had for under $100--less
than the price of a textbook. Besides all this, most of the students taking
intro physics will continue to use Office products but will never again come
near a 'scientific' graphing package. So...it is eminently sensible to use
spreadsheet programs for intro lab graphing. The question remains as to
whether or not we should get too concerned that a graph is called a chart
and a linear fit or linear regression is called a trendline.

Rick

*********************************************************
Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, Indiana
rtarara@saintmarys.edu
********************************************************
Free Physics Educational Software (Win & Mac)
Animations for Lectures
Photo-realistic Lab simulations
Energy management simulations
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/software.html
Energy 2100--class project
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/ENERGY_PROJECT/ENERGY2100.htm
********************************************************