[ via Davos Newbies ] In a article with the facinating title “Blood, Dirt, and Nomograms” you learn about the origin of graphs in science and engineering. From the abstract:
L. J. Henderson, a Harvard physiologist and the first president of the History of Science Society, attempted to analyze mammalian blood solely as a physical-chemical substance. He found that the only way he could describe a chemical system as complicated as blood was by a diagram called a “nomogram.”
