Coloured bar charts: the (only) best bit of maths

I’ve never been too hot on the mathematics front (I try to hide in a cupboard if second-in-command needs help with sums) but one thing I remember enjoying at school was bar charts.

Why? Because you can colour them in. I remember being given a maths detention for not finishing my work during the lesson because I’d spent too long deciding which combination of colours would compliment each other best. It was worth it and I didn’t care (I went for pastels, just in case you were wondering).

Bar charts were invented in 1786 by Scottish engineer and political economist William Playfair, whose other inventions also included my other favourite graph: the pie chart. I think I may have got a detention for those, too…

Martha, The Colour File x

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