Editing 2031: Pie Charts

{{comic
| number    = 2031
| date      = August 10, 2018
| title     = Pie Charts
| image     = pie_charts.png
| titletext = If you can't get your graphing tool to do the shading, just add some clip art of cosmologists discussing the unusual curvature of space in the area.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by ''a cosmologist discussing the unusual curvature of space in the area'' - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{w|Pie_chart|Pie Charts}} graph quantities as "slices" of a circle, like a pie that you cut into slices.  The circle, or Pie, represents the whole sum of the slices, or 100% of the data.  As such, if the data represented by the slices is expressed as percentages, the total of all the slices, by definition, must total 100%.  This comic introduces a new technique for getting around that rule by "warping" the circle to allow more than 100% of the data to exist in the graph. Thus the total amount of 130% is represented with a shape presumably 30% larger in area than the circle.

The resulting warped circle is then actually part of a [[wikipedia:Hyperbolic geometry#Circles and disks|hyperbolic plane]], while a normal circle is part of a flat plane. Of course, it doesn't matter if the geometric shape is a circle or a hyperbolic plane: A changed graphic doesn't magically solve the misrepresentation of percentages. At best, it serves to highlight the methodical error. Regarding doctored statistics: If the same numbers were presented as absolute values instead of percentages, the error would still remain but would be less obvious, especially if you omit the total count of the sample (''Of '''all''' people asked, 40 selected green as favorite color, 45 selected red, 30 yellow and 15 blue.'' This statement omits that you surveyed only 100 people and several of them named several colors, and readers will assume a larger sample.)

Percentages that add up to more than 100% are often a sign that a math error has occurred, whether a typo somewhere or a sloppy case of taking numbers from different sources. However, they can arise naturally in cases where each item can belong to more than one group, such as [[wikipedia:approval voting|approval voting]]. In such cases, a more accurate depiction would have some form of overlap of the pie pieces, not a warping of the space which they occupy.  Minor cases can also occur if the percentages of the pieces have been rounded for readability - summing the rounded numbers can result in them adding to 99% or 101%.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

{{comic discussion}}