Polygraphs: New Digital Methods for Understanding the Impacts of Early Women Writers on Science and Philosophy
The social networks through which knowledge is produced and exchanged can influence how quickly individuals and groups come to share beliefs. But in historical intellectual networks, individuals’ positions within those networks may also have been shaped by gender and exclusion. This project demonstrates how computational methods and data visualization can be used to explore and interpret complex historical relationships.
Using the Six Degrees of Francis Bacon database, a digital reconstruction of 13,309 historical figures and their connections, the project simulates and visualizes knowledge transfer across networks of Royal Society members—including Margaret Cavendish, with both her historically-documented connections and a counterfactual set of connections linking her to all members of the network. The resulting animations allow viewers to observe the simulated movement of knowledge through the network and to see how different structures produce different patterns and rates of consensus.
By
Brian Ball and Todd Linkner
CfD Affiliate Members
Other Team Members
Tyler Gore, Marta Weber and Peter West
Partners
Northeastern University London, NULab and the Women Writers Project
Research Areas
Design + Data