Diagram
Diagram
A diagram is a symbolic representation of information using visualization techniques. Diagrams have been used since prehistoric times on walls of caves, but became more prevalent during the Enlightenment. Sometimes, the technique uses a three-dimensional visualization technique which then become projected onto a two-dimensional surface.
"Many different types of pictorial representations are used in instruction. On a scale of very concrete to very abstract, first comes the photograph. Next are true-to-life drawings which lose some detail compared to the photograph. Diagrams are more abstract, but generally depict recognizable objects and preserve spatial relationships. Lastly graphs and plots are completely abstract representations of sets of data."
"Schematic diagrams are more abstract than pictorial drawings, showing symbolic elements and their interconnection to make clear the configuration and/or operation of a system."
"Ive had enough of breakdowns and diagrams — judging from picture books, apparently Heaven is a partly cloudy place."
"The government are very keen on amassing statistics. They collect them, add them, raise them to the nth power, take the cube root and prepare wonderful diagrams. But you must never forget that every one of these figures comes in the first instance from the chowty dar [chowkidar] (village watchman in India), who just puts down what he damn pleases."
"A diagram is a graphic shorthand. Though it is an ideogram, it is not necessarily an abstraction. It is a representation of something in that it is not the thing itself. In this sense, it cannot help but be embodied. It can never be free of value or meaning, even when it attempts to express relationships of formation and their processes. At the same time, a diagram is neither a structure nor an abstraction of structure."
"I have always believed that all Members of this House should be sufficiently articulate to express what they want to say without diagrams."
"Peirce (1932: 2.278) distinguishes two kinds of icons: pictures and diagrams, the latter of which he illustrates with the example of an electrical wiring diagram in relation to the wiring itself. But the difference between a picture and a diagram, as Peirce himself notes, is relative. The picture always abstracts from some features of the object it portrays, e.g., three-dimensionality in painting. The diagram is simply more abstract. The difference, then, is one of degree and not of kind."
"A diagram, indeed, so far as it has a general signification, is not a pure icon; but in the middle part of our reasonings we forget that abstractness in great measure, and the diagram is for us the very thing."
