Guess what the Graph Shows!

[Мастер]

Amount of sunlight somewhere in northwestern Europe over the course of today.

[Lianachan]

Ooh! Good guess.

[Мастер]

Ooh! Good guess.

I didn't check the timing of the eclipse when I made my guess, but I just checked now. It does seem to fit.

[Arneb]

That'S good enough

It is actually Solar energy production in Germany, projected for today, provieded it was cloudless everywhere. There was a big panic mongering from the right side of the spectrum, alleging that our electricity grid would totally collapse because of the rapid change in electricity generatede, and all just because of those idiotic Greens and their stupid championing of Solar power.

I am writing this from a computer plugged into the wall, btw. And no, we do not have an emergency diesel generator.

On to you, Mactep.

[Мастер]

[Мастер]

No takers?

The horizontal axis would be time.

[Arneb]

OK, wild-ass guess. The Dow Jones index, since its inception?

[Мастер]

OK, wild-ass guess. The Dow Jones index, since its inception?

No, that would need a relatively flat area over on the right.

The period of time covered is quite a bit longer than the time since the creation of the Dow Jones index.

[Lance]

CO2 levels and average global temperatures?

[Мастер]

CO2 levels and average global temperatures?

It is neither of those two things, although it is possible that there is a complex relation between those two things and what is shown in the graph. It is also possible that the causality is bi-directional; I lack sufficient (or really, any) expertise to say whether that is really the case.

[Arneb]

Maybe some measure of the number of extant species on Earth over the age of the planet? Maybe it's the number of fossil species found in the strata conforming to the respective ages on Earth. The dents denoted by the yellow triangles would then denote the five great mass extinctions we've had.

[Lance]

I like that!

[Мастер]

Maybe some measure of the number of extant species on Earth over the age of the planet? <wrong stuff skipped> The dents denoted by the yellow triangles would then denote the five great mass extinctions we've had.

Oh! So close!

So what is the next level of classification, above "species"?

[Arneb]

Genera, then.

[Lance]

No, I have it! It is the number of people who deny being related to Kim Jong-un. The valleys are immediately after Great Purges.

[Мастер]

Genera, then.

Most excellent! Have a look at the original, near the bottom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phanerozoic

[Arneb]

Thanks for not discounting my post for mixing up the age of the Earth with the duration of the phanerozoic (about 1/8 of the total age of the Earth!) .

Let me think of something.

[Мастер]

Thanks for not discounting my post for mixing up the age of the Earth with the duration of the phanerozoic (about 1/8 of the total age of the Earth!) .;

I figured you had captured the essential idea.

[Arneb]

Here's a nice one.

[Lianachan]

Level of general board interest in this thread, with months on the x axis?

[Arneb]

No. coincidentally, it has something to do with the "total insignifcance" thought you brought up in another thread.

[Мастер]

Very smooth. However, a probability distribution should integrate to one, which this one doesn't, unless the units on one of the axes are different than shown.

[Arneb]

Very, very smooth indeed.

[Arneb]

One of the researchers involved in the data gathering is reputed to have said that he felt like looking at the face of God when he saw the graph. So yeah, this smooth curve does have significance.

[Мастер]

One of the researchers involved in the data gathering is reputed to have said that he felt like looking at the face of God when he saw the graph. So yeah, this smooth curve does have significance.

I was thinking that the horizontal axis might be time measured in hours, but the above comment has me thinking along different lines now.