Szymon Kaliski

Working in the Dynamic Medium

Collection of random thoughts of how working in the dynamic medium might look like.

• explainers:

  The Cartesian plane was not invented to disseminate mathematics, or to make math more engaging. It was invented to help do math.

  The same point can be made about John Snow's cholera map, Feynman QED diagrams, and our other most powerful representations.

  — https://twitter.com/andy_matuschak/status/1305264244896587776 ↗

  (...) to me, the deepest use of "explorable explanations" is not as standalone "explainers", but as conversational tools, so everyone involved in a discussion can see, explore, and challenge what's being discussed. The explainer can be thought of as introducing/teaching a language/toolset/interface/representation that can then be used in discussion.

  — https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/808399253928218624 ↗

  • both Andy Matuschak and Bret Victor mention "explorable explainers" (which are often essays with multiple dynamic, interactive visualisations) as ideally a way to do, not only to explain
    • this seems to tie often into inventing Powerful Interfaces and/or Solving Things Visually - but instead of using these visualisations as one-offs for explaining a concept, they could be used as reusable Tools for Thinking