ABSTRACT
Many statistical methods depend on the satisfaction of strict assumptions and prior probabilities in order to test hypotheses formulated in advance, but plotting data comes with few restrictions. Statistical graphics in a sense can help to generate new hypotheses and make great leaps in our fundamental understanding of the world. Interactive statistical graphics, which takes plotting numbers a step further, were born in the excitement of the computer graphics revolution. Picturing, Rotation, Isolation, and Masking up to nine dimensions (PRIM-9) was part of John Tukey's body of research in exploratory data analysis that foreshadowed today's data mining research. Linking was not a feature for PRIM-9, because linking is used when there are multiple plots visible, a style that emerged a decade beyond PRIM-9's days. Tours provide sequences of low-dimensional projections of high-dimensional data. The PRIM-9 video is piece of theatre— staged, scripted, and substantive.
